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Introduction: The connection between aging and cancer is complex. Previous research has highlighted the association between the aging process of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) cells and the immune response, yet there remains a gap in confirming this through single-cell data validation. Here, we aim to develop a novel aging-related prognostic model for LUAD, and verify the alterations in the genome and immune microenvironment linked to cellular senescence. Methods: We integrated a comprehensive collection of senescence genes from the GenAge and CellAge databases and employed the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) Cox analysis to construct and validate a novel prognostic model for LUAD. This model was then utilized to examine the relationship between aging, tumor somatic mutations, and immune cell infiltration. Additionally, we explored the heterogeneity of senescence and intercellular communication within the LUAD tumor microenvironment (TME) through single-cell transcriptomic data analysis. Results: By exploring the expression profiles of 586 cellular senescence-related genes in 428 LUAD patients, we constructed an aging-related genes (ARGs) risk model included 10 ARGs and validated it as an independent prognostic predictor for LUAD patients. Notably, patients with low aging scores (LAS group) exhibited better survival, lower tumor mutation burden (TMB), lower somatic mutation frequency, lower tumor proliferation rate, and an immune activated phenotype compared to patients with high aging scores (HAS group). While the HAS group was enriched in tumor cells and showed a lower infiltration of CD8-CCR7, CD8-CXCL13, CD8-GNLY, FCGR3A NK cells, XCL1 NK cells, plasma cell (PC) and other immune subsets. Furthermore, the SPP1 and TENASCIN pathways, associated with tumor immune escape and tumor progression, were also enriched in the HAS group. Additionally, our study also indicated that senescence levels were heterogeneous in the LUAD tumor microenvironment (TME), especially with tumor cells in the LAS group showing higher age scores compared to those in the HAS group. Conclusions: Collectively, our findings underscore that ARRS through ARGs serves as a robust biomarker for the prognosis in LUAD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Psoriasis extends beyond its dermatological inflammatory manifestations, encompassing systemic inflammation. Existing studies have indicated a potential risk of cervical cancer among patients with psoriasis, suggesting a potential mechanism of co-morbidity. This study aims to explore the key genes, pathways, and immune cells that may link psoriasis and cervical squamous cell carcinoma (CESC). Methods: The cervical squamous cell carcinoma dataset (GSE63514) was downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). Two psoriasis-related datasets (GSE13355 and GSE14905) were merged into one comprehensive dataset after removing batch effects. Differentially expressed genes were identified using Limma and co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), and machine learning random forest algorithm (RF) was used to screen the hub genes. We analyzed relevant gene enrichment pathways using GO and KEGG, and immune cell infiltration in psoriasis and CESC samples using CIBERSORT. The miRNA-mRNA and TFs-mRNA regulatory networks were then constructed using Cytoscape, and the biomarkers for psoriasis and CESC were determined. Potential drug targets were obtained from the cMAP database, and biomarker expression levels in hela and psoriatic cell models were quantified by RT-qPCR. Results: In this study, we identified 27 key genes associated with psoriasis and cervical squamous cell carcinoma. NCAPH, UHRF1, CDCA2, CENPN and MELK were identified as hub genes using the Random Forest machine learning algorithm. Chromosome mitotic region segregation, nucleotide binding and DNA methylation are the major enrichment pathways for common DEGs in the mitotic cell cycle. Then we analyzed immune cell infiltration in psoriasis and cervical squamous cell carcinoma samples using CIBERSORT. Meanwhile, we used the cMAP database to identify ten small molecule compounds that interact with the central gene as drug candidates for treatment. By analyzing miRNAmRNA and TFs-mRNA regulatory networks, we identified three miRNAs and nine transcription factors closely associated with five key genes and validated their expression in external validation datasets and clinical samples. Finally, we examined the diagnostic effects with ROC curves, and performed experimental validation in hela and psoriatic cell models. Conclusions: We identified five biomarkers, NCAPH, UHRF1, CDCA2, CENPN, and MELK, which may play important roles in the common pathogenesis of psoriasis and cervical squamous cell carcinoma, furthermore predict potential therapeutic agents. These findings open up new perspectives for the diagnosis and treatment of psoriasis and squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Gallbladder neuroendocrine carcinoma (GB-NEC) is an extremely rare cancer with a poor prognosis in the clinic. Although surgical resection remains the primary and preferred therapeutics, many patients are in a late stage and lose the opportunity for surgery. However, due to the extremely low morbidity, the specific treatment guidelines for GB-NEC have not been established. Case presentation: A 52-year-old woman was admitted to our hospital with the chief complaint of "almost 1 month after palliative surgery for metastatic gallbladder carcinoma." According to the results of pathological findings and imaging manifestations, the patient was diagnosed with GB-NEC with a clinical stage of pT3N1M1 (IVB). The patient then received tislelizumab plus EP chemotherapy (etoposide 100 mg + cisplatin 30 mg, d1-3) every 3 weeks for 8 cycles from 12 November, 2021, followed by maintenance therapy (tislelizumab alone) every 3 weeks until now. The tumor response was evaluated as complete remission since 13 February, 2023. As of the last followup, the patient remains alive, with no complaints of discomfort. Conclusions: Gallbladder NEC has no specific symptoms, and the diagnosis is based on pathological and immunohistochemical results. The therapeutic course and efficacy of the case in this study indicates that the application of PD-1 inhibitor might be a feasible therapeutic option for GB-NEC. However, this potential strategy needs validation by further clinical studies in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep learning has become widely used in image analysis. Transfer learning can make use of information from other datasets for the analysis of the chosen dataset. When there is a small number of images at hand, transfer learning using pre-trained models with coefficients already estimated from other datasets is recommended. This is in contrast to deep learning, where most model parameters are re-estimated. Deep transfer learning uses pre-trained models with fixed weight parameters in the lower layers; thus, deep learning can be viewed as a two-stage approach: (1) feature extraction from a lower neural network layer and (2) estimation of a neural network using the extracted features as inputs. Since deep transfer learning is feature extraction, we can extend the two-stage approach to a more general two-stage framework: (1) feature extraction using multiple methods and (2) machine learning methods taking extracted features as inputs. We evaluate the performance of methods with different Stage 1 and Stage 2 approaches in predicting the phenotype leaf numbers based on a multi-view plant imaging dataset. This paper contains an evaluation of different two-stage machine learning methods for multi-view image data in plant image phenotyping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To investigate the incidence of pelvic floor dysfunction (PFD) and electrophysiological indicators in postpartum women at 6–8 weeks and explore the influence of demographic characteristics and obstetric factors. Methods: A survey questionnaire collected information about the conditions of women during their pregnancy and puerperal period and their demographic characteristics; pelvic organ prolapse quantitation (POP-Q) and pelvic floor muscle electrophysiology (EP) examination were conducted in postpartum women at 6–8 weeks. Results: Vaginal delivery was a risk factor for anterior pelvic organ prolapse (POP) (OR 7.850, 95% confidence interval (CI) 5.804–10.617), posterior POP (OR 5.990, 95% CI 3.953–9.077), anterior and posterior stage II POP (OR 6.636, 95% CI 3.662–15.919), and postpartum urinary incontinence (UI) (OR 6.046, 95% CI 3.894–9.387); parity was a risk factor for anterior POP (OR 1.397,95% CI 0.889–2.198) and anterior and posterior stage II POP (OR 4.162, 95% CI 2.125–8.152); age was a risk factor for anterior POP (OR 1.056, 95% CI 1.007–1.108) and postpartum UI (OR 1.066, 95% CI 1.014–1.120); body mass index (BMI) was a risk factor for postpartum UI (OR 1.117, 95% CI 1.060–1.177); fetal birth weight was a risk factor for posterior POP (OR 1.465, 95% CI 1.041–2.062); and the frequency of pregnancy loss was a risk factor for apical POP (OR 1.853, 95% CI 1.060–3.237). Conclusion: Pelvic floor muscle EP is a sensitive index of early pelvic floor injury. The changes in muscle strength and fatigue degree coexist in different types of postpartum PFD, and each has its own characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Free bending forming (FBF) is a flexible forming technology that gained significant attention recently because of its broad applications in critical industries such as the automotive, aerospace, and nuclear industries. Thus, this paper aims to present a comprehensive review of FBF technology and its flexibility in manufacturing thin-walled complex-shaped metallic tubes with variable curvatures. First, the historical development and state of the art of FBF technology were reviewed and discussed its importance in tube forming recently. Then, the fundamental principles, theoretical modelling, deformation mechanisms during complex bending, critical process parameters, and forming defects with a discussion of the recent research and technological developments of FBF technology under three-, five- and six-axis processes were explained. After that, the system dies and tools design of the FBF machines and the trajectory control of the bending die were presented. Afterwards, the mechanisms of manufacturing spiral and involute hollow metallic tubes and outstanding solutions for critical issues during tube manufacturing, such as springback, cross-section deformation, over-thinning (even cracking), and wrinkling instability were introduced. Finally, the paper is concluded by providing the discussions on the system, die and tool design methodology, and outlook of the FBF technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The size effect on nanoparticles, which affects the catalysis performance in a significant way, is crucial. The tuning of oxygen vacancies on metal-oxide support can help reduce the size of the particles in active clusters of Pt, thus improving catalysis performance of the supported catalyst. Herein, Ce- Sn solid solutions (CSO) with abundant oxygen vacancies have been synthesized. Activated by simple CO reduction after loading Pt species, the catalytic CO oxidation performance of Pt/CSO was significantly better than that of Pt/CeO2. The reasons for the elevated activity were further explored regarding ionic Pt single sites being transformed into active Pt clusters after CO reduction. Due to more exposed oxygen vacancies, much smaller Pt clusters were created on CSO (ca. 1.2 nm) than on CeO2 (ca. 1.8 nm). Consequently, more exposed active Pt clusters significantly improved the ability to activate oxygen and directly translated to the higher catalytic oxidation performance of activated Pt/CSO catalysts in vehicle emission control applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: With a high incidence and dismal survival rate, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tops the list of the world's most frequent malignant tumors. Immunotherapy is a new approach to cancer treatment, and its effect on prolonging overall survival (OS) varies from patient to patient. For a more effective prognosis and treatment of HCC, we are committed to identifying immune infiltration-related long non-coding RNAs (IIRLs) with prognostic value in hepatocellular carcinoma. Methods: In our study, we calculated immune scores of 369 hepatocellular carcinoma samples from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database by using an estimation algorithm, and obtained long non-coding RNAs (IncRNAs) associated with immune infiltration by using Weighted Gene Co-expression Network analysis (WGCNA). For training cohort, univariate Cox, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (Lasso) and multivariate Cox regression analysis were used to determine prognostic IIRLs, we established a prognostic IIRLs signature. By testing cohort and entire cohort, we confirmed that the signature is practical. The prognosis of people with different clinicopathological stages and risk scores were predicted by the nomogram we constructed. In addition, Immune cell infiltration analysis and prediction of therapeutic drugs were performed. Results: 93 IIRLs were obtained by WGCNA. Furthermore, the prognostic value of these IIRLs were evaluated by using univariate Cox, Lasso and multivariate Cox analysis. Four IIRLs were used to create a signature with a prognosis. Time-related receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve revealed that this model had an acceptable prognostic value for HCC patients. By using univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis, this risk score has been shown to be an independent prognostic factor for HCC. The nomogram we made showed good predictions. Except for that, the treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) was likely to be more effective for low-risk patients. Conclusion: Based on four IIRLs, a prognostic signature was created in this research showed good accuracy in predicting OS. This study also provided valuable references for Immunotherapy of hepatocellular carcinoma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The incidence of liver fibrosis is increasing worldwide, and if left untreated, it will later develop into cirrhosis with a high mortality rate. In this paper, the activation pathway and related mechanism of stellate cells in liver fibrosis are introduced, and some current therapeutic methods are summarized. These results suggest that stellate cells play an important role in liver fibrosis, and targeted therapy for the purpose of inhibiting the activation of stellate cells and inducing their apoptosis is expected to be an effective regimen to reverse liver fibrosis. However, there are some problems such as insufficient in-depth study of related mechanisms and imperfect experiments. In future animal experiments and clinical trials, more studies can be carried out to provide high-quality protocols for the treatment of liver fibrosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hepatocytes can divide rapidly and proliferate in the absence of inflammation and fibroplasia in the damaged or partial hepatectomy (PHx) of the liver, which is essential for the recovery of related patients. Recent studies have found that bile acids (BA) play an important role in the process of liver regeneration. In the early stages of PHx, bile acid overload occurs, and liver injury is aggravated by loading. Later bile acids can induce protective and proliferative responses in the liver and promote liver regeneration. In this paper, we summarize the negative effects after bile acid overload and its positive role as a signaling molecule involved in related signaling pathways on liver regeneration, including protection of the liver and promotion of liver regeneration, and its double-edswordged "in Liver regeneration. This provides a theoretical basis for subsequent in-depth study of the mechanism and benefit avoidance in clinical treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Benzobisthiazole polymer with resonance-assisted hydrogen bonds (RAHBs) has been synthesized for both organic field-effect transistor and polymer solar cell applications. The properties of the hydrogen bonded polymer are compared with the reference polymer without RAHBs. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction analyses of the building block reveal that the RAHB interactions are formed between the carbamate hydrogen and imine nitrogen of the thiazoles. The hydrogen donor and acceptor are connected by π-conjugated molecular framework and the hydrogen-bridged quasi aromatic rings lock the conformation of the building block. The building block adopted a layered sandwich packing in crystal instead of slipped herringbone stacking which was often found in the crystal of benzobisthiazole derivatives. The polymer PCBTZ-TT with RAHBs showed deeper HOMO/LUMO energy level (about 0.2 eV) than reference polymer. The PCBTZ-TT demonstrated the hole mobility of 0.96 cm2·V−1·s−1 in field-effect transistor devices and achieved power conversion efficiency of 13.6% in solar cell devices with Y6 as acceptor without any additive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autophagy is a process of lysosome degradation, which plays an important role in maintaining cell homeostasis and organ integrity through the degradation of misfolded proteins, removal of damaged organelles and excess lipids, which is one of the research hotspots in recent years. Liver disease often develops into chronic disease with high mortality, which seriously affects the life safety and quality of life of patients. Studies have shown that autophagy participates in the processes of cellular immunity and oxidative stress, plays an important role in a variety of liver diseases, has the characteristics of two-way regulation, and moderate autophagy has a protective effect. Excessive or dysfunctional autophagy can promote cell death and lead to the occurrence and development of the disease. at present, regulating autophagy is considered as a potential treatment. Based on chronic viral hepatitis, liver fibrosis, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, acute liver failure and primary liver cancer, this paper reviews the functional characteristics and regulatory mechanism of autophagy in liver diseases. to explore new therapeutic targets for liver diseases, in order to provide new ideas and basis for clinical diagnosis and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the influences of oral high-dose genistein (GE) administration on exercise-induced oxidative stress, inflammatory re-sponse and tissue damage. Materials and Methods: Thirty-two mice were randomly divided into control group (Con; sedentary/0.5% CMC-Na), GE administrated group (GE; sedentary/GE dosed), exercise group (Ex; exercise/0.5% CMC-Na), or GE administrated plus exercise group (GE + Ex; ex-ercise/GE dosed), mice in the GE and GE + Ex group were given GE orally at the dose of 200 mg/kg weight. Results: Plasma aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels, liver interleukin (IL)-6, IL-1β, superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1), catalase (CAT), hemeoxygenase-1 (HO-1) gene expression levels and skeletal muscle IL-6, nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor (Nrf2), and HO-1 gene expression levels increased immediately after exhaustive exercise. GE sup-plementation increased liver protein carbonyl concentrations. On the other hand, GE supplementa-tion significantly decreased SOD1, CAT gene expression levels in the liver and Nrf2, and HO-1 gene expression levels in the skeletal muscles. Conclusions: Acute exercise induced organ damage, in-flammation, and oxidative stress in skeletal muscles and the liver. However, a single dose of GE supplementation before exercise did not lead to favorable antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dissociative ionization dynamics were studied experimentally for CO2 driven by intense laser pulses. Three-dimensional momentum vectors of correlated atomic ions were obtained for each three-body fragmentation event using triple ion coincidence measurement. Newton diagram demonstrated that three-body fragmentation of CO2n+ (n = 3-6) can occur through Coulomb explosion process and sequential fragmentation process depending on the fragmentation channels. The experimental data from these two processes were disentangled by using correlation diagram of correlated ions. Based on the accurate Coulomb explosion data, we reconstructed the bond angle distributions of CO2n+ at the moment of fragmentation, which are close to that of neutral CO2 before laser irradiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hepatic fibrosis (HF) is the common pathological basis of all chronic liver diseases, and is a necessary stage for the development of chronic liver disease into cirrhosis. The pathogenesis of liver fibrosis is very complicated. Different cells and cytokines play a major role in the pathogenesis of liver fibrosis. This article focuses on the development mechanism of liver fibrosis, different cells and cytokines (macrophages, natural killer cells, natural killer T cells, tumor necrosis factor, IL-22, transforming growth factor-_, connective tissue growth factor, vascular endothelial growth factor) Its impact on the development of liver fibrosis is reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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We experimentally reconstructed the structure of the N2Ar van der Waals complex with the technique of laser-based channel-selected Coulomb explosion imaging. The internuclear distance between the N2 center of mass and the Ar atom, i.e., the length of the van der Waals bond, was determined to be 3.88 Å from the two-body explosion channels. The angle between the van der Waals bond and the N2 principal axis was determined to be 90° from the three-body explosion channels. The reconstructed structure was contrasted with our high level ab initio calculations. The agreement demonstrated the potential application of laser-based Coulomb explosion in imaging transient molecular structure, particularly for floppy van der Waals complexes, whose structures remain difficult to be determined by conventional spectroscopic methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proteolytic processing of procollagens is a central step during collagen fibril formation. Bone morphogenic protein 1 (BMP1) is a metalloprotease that plays an important role in the cleavage of carboxy-terminal (COOH-terminal) propeptides from procollagens. Although the removal of propeptides is required to generate mature collagen fibrils, the contribution of BMP1 to this proteolytic process and its action site remain to be fully determined. In this study, using postnatal lung fibroblasts as a model system, we showed that genetic ablation of Bmp1 in primary murine lung fibroblasts abrogated COOH-terminal cleavage from type I procollagen as measured by COOH-terminal propeptide of type I procollagen (CICP) production. We also showed that inhibition of BMP1 by siRNA-mediated knockdown or small-molecule inhibitor reduced the vast majority of CICP production and collagen deposition in primary human lung fibroblasts. Furthermore, we discovered and characterized two antibody inhibitors for BMP1. In both postnatal lung fibroblast and organoid cultures, BMP1 blockade prevented CICP production. Together, these findings reveal a nonredundant role of extracellular BMP1 to process CICP in lung fibroblasts and suggest that development of antibody inhibitors is a viable pharmacological approach to target BMP1 proteinase activity in fibrotic diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To explore the main physiological mechanism of 15d-PGJ2 promoting periodontal tissue regeneration in patients with jaw defects caused by periodontal disease. Methods: From February 2016 to July 2019, a controlled study was conducted on 73 healthy residents (healthy group) and 73 patients (case group) with periodontal disease combined with jaw defects in Changsha medical university. T test was used to compare the growth factors of gingival crevicular fluid between the two groups. Peripheral blood cells;Cement-specific protein; Peripheral blood enzyme;Statistical differences in bone metabolites. The t test method compared the content of each index before and after treatment(15d-PGJ2 was treated at a dose of 200 mu/kg for 14 days). The method of factor analysis explores the internal correlation of each index. Result: RANKL, ICAM-1, TGF-β1,Th17,Treg, PDLSCs,SOST,CAP,HMGB1,CTSK,5-LOX,COX-2,NTX were higher in the case group than in the healthy group. In the case group, RANKL,ICAM-1,TGF-ß1, Th17,Treg,PDLSCs,SOST,CAP,HMGB1,CTSK,5-LOX,COX-2,NTX were lower than those in the healthy group. The differences between the groups were statistically significant (P<0.05). Compared with before treatment, IL-1β, IL-17, Bfgf, YKL-40, BMP-2, ICTP, PICP, CTX were significantly decreased after treatment. RANKL, ICAM-1, TGF-β1, Th17, Treg, PDLSCs, SOST, CAP, HMGB1, CTSK, 5-LOX, COX-2, NTX were significantly increased. The differences were statistically significant(P<0.05). Factor analysis shows that four common factors can be extracted from 21 indicators, and the cumulative contribution rate is 96.993%. Conclusions: The treatment of 15d-PGJ2 in patients with periodontal disease with maxillary defects can significantly affect the expression of multiple characteristic indicators, which may involve four mechanisms: dysregulation of cell differentiation or migration, local inflammation or immune imbalance, destruction of alveolar bone microstructure, load or stimulation, and remodeling. The specific pathway related to this is still to be further explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) is still one of the important problems threatening the health and safety of human life. If the virus can not be effectively controlled, it will gradually evolve into chronic hepatitis. Chronic hepatitis will not be treated for a long time, and will gradually develop into liver fibrosis, cirrhosis, liver cancer or even liver failure and other diseases with poor prognosis. However, there is no specific western medicine treatment for liver fibrosis, cirrhosis and other liver diseases. The main treatment methods are symptomatic treatment, internal medicine comprehensive treatment and prevention of complications. In recent years, the medical technology has been continuously developed and improved, scholars at home and abroad have focused on the effective ways to prevent and treat liver diseases. More and more studies have confirmed the mesenchymal stem cells Cell (MSC) plays an important role in the treatment of liver diseases. The author will describe the therapeutic effect of MSC from different sources on liver diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Toward the goal of increasing the throughput of high-resolution mass characterization of intact antibodies, we developed a RapidFire-mass spectrometry (MS) assay using electrospray ionization. We achieved unprecedented screening throughput as fast as 15 s/sample, which is an order of magnitude improvement over conventional liquid chromatography (LC)-MS approaches. The screening enabled intact mass determination as accurate as 7 ppm with baseline resolution at the glycoform level for intact antibodies. We utilized this assay to characterize and perform relative quantitation of antibody species from 248 samples of 62 different cell line clones at four time points in 2 h using RapidFire-time-of-flight MS screening. The screening enabled selection of clones with the highest purity of bispecific antibody production and the results significantly correlated with conventional LC-MS results. In addition, analyzing antibodies from a complex plasma sample using affinity-RapidFire-MS was also demonstrated and qualified. In summary, the platform affords high-throughput analyses of antibodies, including bispecific antibodies and potential mispaired side products, in cell culture media, or other complex matrices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The data rate in a single-mode fiber is approaching the capacity limit given by the Shannon theory. Mode division multiplexing, such as few modes, orbital angular momentum, and cylindrical vector beam (CVB) multiplexing, has shown great potential to further increase data capacity in both free-space and fiber communication. We propose and demonstrate high-order CVB multiplexing communication in an air-core photonics crystal fiber (PCF). The simulation results show that the 19-cell air-core PCF supports transmission of CVB modes from ±1 to ±4 orders. In the experiment, ±1- to ±4-orders CVBs are transmitted in 8.25-m-long air-core PCF with the mode purities higher than 76.5%. We demonstrate four coaxial CVB channel communication by multiplexing the ±2- and ±3-orders CVB modes. Each CVB channel carries 10-Gbit/s on-off keying signals and the measured bit error rates satisfy the forward error correction threshold. CVB communications based on air-core PCF can be used in short-distance optical communication with high capacity and low optical latency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ultrafine-grained pure titanium prepared by equal-channel angular pressing has favorable mechanical performance and does not contain alloy elements that are toxic to the human body. It has potential clinical value in applications such as cardiac valve prostheses, vascular stents and hip prostheses. To overcome the material's inherent thrombogenicity, surface-coating modification is a crucial pathway to enhancing blood compatibility. An electrolyte solution of sodium silicate + sodium polyphosphate + calcium acetate and the micro-arc oxidation (MAO) technique were employed for in situ oxidation of an ultrafine-grained pure titanium surface. A porous coating with anatase and rutile-phase TiO2 was generated and wettability and blood compatibility were examined. The results showed that, in comparison with ultrafine-grained pure titanium substrate, the MAO coating had a rougher surface, smaller contact angles for distilled water and higher surface energy. MAO modification effectively reduced the hemolysis rate; extended the dynamic coagulation time, prothrombin time (PT) and activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT); reduced the amount of platelet adhesion and the degree of deformation and enhanced blood compatibility. In particular, the sample with an oxidation time of 9 min possessed the highest surface energy, largest PT and APTT values, smallest hemolysis rate, less platelet adhesion, a lesser degree of deformation and more favorable blood compatibility. The MAO method can significantly enhance the blood compatibility of ultrafine-grained pure titanium, increasing its potential for practical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two copolymers of P1 and P2 comprising benzothiadiazole, 1,4-bis(dodecyloxy)-benzene units were synthesized by Sonogashira coupling polymerization based on ethynyl-linked 1,2,5,6-naphthalenediimide. Their thermal, optical, electrochemical as well as charge transport properties were studied. Bottom-gate top-contact organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) measurements of P1 and P2 thin films showed different charge transport behaviors. P1 displayed pure electron transport behaviors in OFETs with electron mobility up to 10 cm·V·s, while P2 exhibited hole transport features. The molecular structure analysis revealed that the structure of P1 has the acceptor-linker-acceptor′ (A-L-A′) characteristic, and P2 possesses the donor-linker-acceptor (D-L-A) structure feature. The results demonstrate that different molecular structures lead them to have distinct charge transport behaviors. In particular, the first pure electron transport copolymer in OFETs based on 1,2,5,6-naphthalenediimide is achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Congenital human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection is the leading cause of neurological disabilities in children worldwide, but the mechanisms underlying these disorders are far from well-defined. HCMV infection has been shown to dysregulate the Notch signaling pathway in human neural progenitor cells (NPCs). As an important downstream effector of Notch signaling, the transcriptional regulator Hairy and Enhancer of Split 1 (Hes1) is essential for governing NPC fate and fetal brain development. In the present study, we report that HCMV infection downregulates Hes1 protein levels in infected NPCs. The HCMV 72-kDa immediate-early 1 protein (IE1) is involved in Hes1 degradation by assembling a ubiquitination complex and promoting Hes1 ubiquitination as a potential E3 ubiquitin ligase, followed by proteasomal degradation of Hes1. Sp100A, an important component of PML nuclear bodies, is identified to be another target of IE1-mediated ubiquitination. A C-terminal acidic region in IE1, spanning amino acids 451 to 475, is required for IE1/Hes1 physical interaction and IE1-mediated Hes1 ubiquitination, but is dispensable for IE1/Sp100A interaction and ubiquitination. Our study suggests a novel mechanism linking downregulation of Hes1 protein to neurodevelopmental disorders caused by HCMV infection. Our findings also complement the current knowledge of herpesviruses by identifying IE1 as the first potential HCMVencoded E3 ubiquitin ligase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Aims: Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are widely used for the treatment of acid-related gastrointestinal diseases. Recently, some studies have reported that PPIs can alter the gastric mucosal architecture; however, the relationship remains controversial. This meta-analysis study was designed to quantify the association between long-term PPI administration and gastric atrophy. Materials and Methods: A PubMed search was conducted to identify studies using the keywords proton pump inhibitors or PPI and gastric atrophy or atrophic gastritis; the timeframe of publication searched was up to May 2016. Heterogeneity among studies was tested with the Q test; odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated. P values were calculated by I2 tests and regarded as statistically significant when <0.05. Results: We identified 13 studies that included 1465 patients under long-term PPI therapy and 1603 controls, with a total gastric atrophy rate of 14.50%. There was a higher presence of gastric atrophy (15.84%; statistically significant) in PPI group compared to the control group (13.29%) (OR: 1.55, 95% CI: 1.00-2.41). Conclusions: The pooled data suggest that long-term PPI use is associated with increased rates of gastric atrophy. Large-scale multicenter studies should be conducted to further investigate the relationship between acid suppressants and precancerous diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial reconstruction of three-dimensional (3D) hydrogel microstructures would greatly contribute to tissue assembly in vitro, and has been widely applied in tissue engineering and drug screening. Recent technological advances in the assembly of functional hydrogel microstructures such as microfluidic, 3D bioprinting, and micromold-based 3D hydrogel fabrication methods have enabled the formation of 3D tissue constructs. However, they still lack flexibility and high efficiency, which restrict their application in 3D tissue constructs. Alternatively, we report a feasible method for the fabrication and reconstruction of customized 3D hydrogel blocks. Arbitrary hydrogel microstructures were fabricated in situ via flexible and rapid light-addressable electrodeposition. To demonstrate the versatility of this method, the higher-order assembly of 3D hydrogel blocks was investigated using a constant direct current (DC) voltage (6 V) applied between two electrodes for 20-120 s. In addition to the plane-based two-dimensional (2D) assembly, hierarchical structures--including multi-layer 3D hydrogel structures and vessel-shaped structures--could be assembled using the proposed method. Overall, we developed a platform that enables researchers to construct complex 3D hydrogel microstructures efficiently and simply, which has the potential to facilitate research on drug screening and 3D tissue constructs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation: How chromatin folds in three-dimensional (3D) space is closely related to transcription regulation. As powerful tools to study such 3D chromatin conformation, the recently developed Hi-C technologies enable a genome-wide measurement of pair-wise chromatin interaction. However, methods for the detection of biologically meaningful chromatin interactions, i.e. peak calling, from Hi-C data, are still under development. In our previous work, we have developed a novel hidden Markov random field (HMRF) based Bayesian method, which through explicitly modeling the non-negligible spatial dependency among adjacent pairs of loci manifesting in high resolution Hi-C data, achieves substantially improved robustness and enhanced statistical power in peak calling. Superior to peak callers that ignore spatial dependency both methodologically and in performance, our previous Bayesian framework suffers from heavy computational costs due to intensive computation incurred by modeling the correlated peak status of neighboring loci pairs and the inference of hidden dependency structure. Results: In this work, we have developed FastHiC, a novel approach based on simulated field approximation, which approximates the joint distribution of the hidden peak status by a set of independent random variables, leading to more tractable computation. Performance comparisons in real data analysis showed that FastHiC not only speeds up our original Bayesian method by more than five times, bus also achieves higher peak calling accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified thousands of genetic variants associated with complex traits and diseases. However, most of them are located in the non-protein coding regions, and therefore it is challenging to hypothesize the functions of these non-coding GWAS variants. Recent large efforts such as the ENCODE and Roadmap Epigenomics projects have predicted a large number of regulatory elements. However, the target genes of these regulatory elements remain largely unknown. Chromatin conformation capture based technologies such as Hi-C can directly measure the chromatin interactions and have generated an increasingly comprehensive catalog of the interactome between the distal regulatory elements and their potential target genes. Leveraging such information revealed by Hi-C holds the promise of elucidating the functions of genetic variants in human diseases. Results: In this work, we present HiView, the first integrative genome browser to leverage Hi-C results for the interpretation of GWAS variants. HiView is able to display Hi-C data and statistical evidence for chromatin interactions in genomic regions surrounding any given GWAS variant, enabling straightforward visualization and interpretation. Conclusions: We believe that as the first GWAS variants-centered Hi-C genome browser, HiView is a useful tool guiding post-GWAS functional genomics studies. HiView is freely accessible at: http://www.unc.edu/~yunmli/HiView. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]