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Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Wenshen Xiaozheng Tang (WXT), a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) decoction, is effective for treating endometriosis. However, the effect of WXT on endometrium-derived mesenchymal stem cells (eMSCs) which play a key role in the fibrogenesis of endometriosis requires further elucidation., Aims of the Study: The aim of this study was to clarify the potential mechanism of WXT in improving fibrosis in endometriosis by investigating the regulation of WXT on differentiation and paracrine of eMSCs., Materials and Methods: The nude mice with endometriosis were randomly divided into model group, WXT group and mifepristone group. After 21 days of treatment, the lesion volume was calculated. Fibrosis in the lesions was evaluated by Masson staining and expression of fibrotic proteins. The differentiation of eMSCs in vivo was explored using a fate-tracking experiment. To further clarify the regulation of WXT on eMSCs, primary eMSCs from the ectopic lesions of endometriosis patients were isolated and characterized. The effect of WXT on the proliferation and differentiation of ectopic eMSCs was examined. To evaluate the role of WXT on the paracrine activity of ectopic eMSCs, the conditioned medium (CM) from ectopic eMSCs pretreated with WXT was collected and applied to treat ectopic endometrial stromal cells (ESCs), after which the expression of fibrotic proteins in ectopic ESCs was assessed. In addition, transcriptome sequencing was used to investigate the regulatory mechanism of WXT on ectopic eMSCs, and western blot and ELISA were employed to determine the key mediator., Results: WXT impeded the growth of ectopic lesions in nude mice with endometriosis and reduced collagen deposition and the expression of fibrotic proteins fibronectin, collagen I, α-SMA and CTGF in the endometriotic lesions. The fate-tracking experiment showed that WXT prevented human eMSCs from differentiating into myofibroblasts in the nude mice. We successfully isolated eMSCs from the lesions of patients with endometriosis and demonstrated that WXT suppressed proliferation and myofibroblast differentiation of ectopic eMSCs. Moreover, the expression of α-SMA, collagen I, fibronectin and CTGF in ectopic ESCs was significantly down-regulated by the CM of ectopic MSCs pretreated with WXT. Combining the results of RNA sequencing, western blot and ELISA, we found that WXT not only reduced thrombospondin 4 expression in ectopic eMSCs, but also decreased thrombospondin 4 secretion from ectopic eMSCs. Thrombospondin 4 concentration-dependently upregulated the expression of collagen I, fibronectin, α-SMA and CTGF in ectopic ESCs, indicating that thrombospondin 4 was a key mediator of WXT in inhibiting the fibrotic process in endometriosis., Conclusion: WXT improved fibrosis in endometriosis by regulating differentiation and paracrine signaling of eMSCs. Thrombospondin 4, whose release from ectopic eMSCs is inhibited by WXT, may be a potential target for the treatment of endometriosis., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

To investigate the gas diffusion mechanism in coal particles under the coupled effects of gas pressure and temperature, a low-temperature liquid nitrogen adsorption experiment was first conducted to obtain the pore structure characteristics and pore size distribution patterns of the coal samples. Subsequently, a methane diffusion experiment was performed on coal particles with simultaneous increases in gas pressure and temperature using a unipore model to solve the diffusion coefficient. Finally, models for the diffusion coefficient of free-state methane and adsorbed-state methane were established, with their applicability discussed. The results indicate that the pore structure of the coal samples exhibits an approximately unimodal distribution, predominantly consisting of mesopores. As the gas pressure and temperature increase, the tortuosity of the coal sample pores also increases. Both the desorption volume and desorption rate of gas rise with the simultaneous increase in gas pressure and temperature, and overall, the diffusion coefficient of coal particles tends to increase under these conditions. Methane diffusion in coal particles is primarily governed by the surface diffusion of adsorbed methane, with gas pressure exerting a greater influence on surface diffusion than temperature. The findings of this study contribute to the understanding of the gas diffusion mechanism in coal and are of significant importance for improving gas extraction rates and preventing gas-related disasters., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing financial interest., (© 2025 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.)

Rosai-Dorfman disease (RDD) is a rare non-Langerhans cell histiocytosis characterized by massive lymphadenopathy and systemic extranodal lesions. We present the case of a 28-year-old woman who presented with recurrent blurred vision in her right eye for 3 months. She developed blindness and atrophy in her left eye a decade prior to presentation. She subsequently developed headache, fever, and impaired mental status. Cranial magnetic resonance imaging indicated hypertrophic pachymeningitis (HP), and 18 F-fluoro-2-deoxy-2-d-glucose (FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography revealed significant FDG uptake in the left dura mater. Autoimmune testing revealed elevated anti-nuclear, anti-SS-A, and anti-SS-B antibody levels. Incisional biopsy of the atrophic eyeball revealed RDD with marked polyclonal plasmacytosis. The patient was diagnosed with RDD accompanied by multisystem involvement, including Sjögren's syndrome (SS), panuveitis, and HP. Treatment with methylprednisolone for several weeks resulted in significant improvement. This is the first reported case of RDD presenting with SS in combination with panuveitis and HP. Although RDD is rarely diagnosed in young patients, interdisciplinary collaboration is essential to prevent a delayed diagnosis., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interestsThe authors declare no competing interests.

Designing giant-molecule acceptors is deemed as an up-and-coming strategy to construct stable organic solar cells (OSCs) with high performance. Herein, two giant dimeric acceptors, namely, DYV and DYFV, have been designed and synthesized by linking two Y-series derivatives with a vinyl unit. DYFV exhibits more red-shifted absorption, down-shifted energy levels, and enhanced intermolecular packing than DYV because the intramolecular noncovalent interaction (H···F) of DYFV leads to better coplanarity of the backbone. The D18:DYFV film owns a distinct nanofibrous nanophase separation structure, a more dominant face-on orientation, and more balanced carrier mobilities. Therefore, the D18:DYFV OSC achieves a higher photoelectron conversion efficiency of 17.88% and a longer-term stability with a t 80 over 45,000 h compared with the D18:DYV device. The study demonstrates that the intramolecular noncovalent interaction is a superior strategy to design giant-molecule acceptors and boost the photovoltaic performance and stability of the OSCs.

Most polymer acceptors have been designed by applying a D (electron-rich unit)-A (electron-deficient unit) strategy, which are principally processed with halogenated solvents to fabricate all-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs). Two novel polymer acceptors, containing an A-A type backbone, were designed and synthesized, which can be readily dissolved in o -xylene. The polymer PY-FBTA, comprising a Y6 derivative as the first A unit and a benzotriazole derivative as the second A unit, shows smaller dihedral angles in the backbone, stronger molecular interactions, higher LUMO level, more complementary absorption spectrum, and better morphology with PM6 than the polymer PY-DPP comprising a diketopyrrolopyrrole derivative as the second A unit. Accordingly, the PM6:PY-FBTA all-PSC achieves a higher PCE of 13.95% than the all-PSC based on PM6:PY-DPP (9.51%) for thoroughly improved J sc (22.34 mA cm -2 ), V oc (0.963 V), and FF (64.84%) values, which are fabricated with o -xylene as the solvent. This work demonstrates that the A-A structure is a desirable strategy for designing polymer acceptors for efficient all-PSCs prepared with nonhalogenated solvents.

Two polymerized naphthalimide derivatives, named as N-TBHOB and N-DBH, are prepared by quaternization. They exhibit excellent performance as electron-transport layers (ETLs) in inverted organic solar cells (i-OSCs). The results indicate N-TBHOB with a reticulated structure owns a superior performance on electron extraction, electron transport, thickness tolerance, and less carrier recombination compared with N-DBH with linear structure. The i-OSCs based on N-TBHOB with PTB7-Th:PC 71 BM as the active layer achieve power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of 10.72% and 10.03% under the thickness of 11 and 48 nm respectively, which indicates N-TBHOB possesses better thickness tolerance than most of organic ETLs in i-OSCs. N-TBHOB also shows more competent performance than N-DBH and ZnO in nonfullerene i-OSCs for comprehensively improved J sc , V oc , and fill factor (FF) values. Its i-OSC with PM6:Y6 blend presents a high PCE of 16.78%. The study provides an efficient strategy to prepare ETLs by combining conjugated and nonconjugated units with a reticulated structure in the backbone for high-performance i-OSCs., (© 2022 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

The objectives of this study were to investigate the properties of butyrylated lotus seed starch (LSB). LSB was prepared using an aqueous phase method and the substitution occurred at C2, C3, and C6. The surface of starch esters with high DS became rougher and more broken. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy proved that the carbonyl group was successfully incorporated into the starch. The degree of crystallinity and molecular weight decreased as DS increased. Moreover, the thermal analysis and viscosity showed a lower gelatinization enthalpy and final viscosity of LSB compared with the unbutyrylated starch (LSB-0). The in vitro digestion characteristics showed that with different distributions at C2, C3, and C6, the content of resistant starch increased, indicating that LSB with higher DS had stronger resistance to digestion. This study revealed that the distribution of butyryl groups at different carbon positions was related to the properties., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

The complete mitochondrial genome of Halticus minutus was sequenced and analyzed in this study. The mitochondrial genome is 15,403 bp in size and comprises 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, two rRNA genes, and one control region (D-loop). The nucleotide composition of the mitogenome is 41.81% A, 32.50% T, 10.43% G, and 15.26% C. Despite only a few references available on the complete mitochondrial genome of Miridae, phylogenetic analysis suggested that H. minutus is most closely related to Nesidiocoris tenuis ., Competing Interests: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)., (© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.)

This study aimed to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and molecular pathways in eutopic endometrial stromal cells (EuESCs) from adenomyosis (AM) patients and to provide a new insight into the disease mechanisms. The gene expression profiles in adenomyotic EuESCs (A-EuESCs) and normal ESCs (N-ESCs) were analyzed by RNA-sequencing (RNA-Seq) and validated by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways enrichment analyses were performed to obtain insights into the functions of DEGs. The protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed using the STRING database and visualized by Cytoscape software, and their hub genes were identified. A total of 458 up-/363 down-regulated genes were identified in A-EuESCs versus N-ESCs. The GO enrichment analysis showed that these genes were significantly enriched in calcium-dependent cell-cell adhesion. The most significant term of the KEGG pathway analysis was cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction. There were 145 nodes in the PPI network of the 157 DEGs, which were identified in significant enrichment pathway by the KEGG pathway analysis in N-ESCs and A-EuESCs. The PPI network revealed that IL-6 was a central hub gene. Besides, IL-6 was found as a central hub gene in the pro-inflammatory/chemotactic subnetwork, and EGF was noted as a central hub gene in the angiogenesis subnetwork. Our study indicated the alterations of transcriptomic profiles in A-EuESCs and provided new insights into the pathogenesis of AM. The A-EuESCs in women with AM have fundamental abnormalities that may predispose to pro-invasion/migration and angiogenesis.

Aims: Van der Woude syndrome (VWS) is one of the most common craniofacial anomalies, causing significant functional and psychological burden to the patients. This study aimed to identify the genetic cause of VWS in a Chinese family., Methods: Whole genome sequencing (WGS) was performed to screen for pathogenic mutations. Various Bioinformatics tools were used to assess the pathogenicity of the variants. Cosegregation analysis of the candidate variant was carried out. Interpretation of variants was performed according to the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics guidelines., Results: A novel frameshift duplication c.373_374dupAA (p.Asn125Lys fs*43) was identified in exon 4 of the interferon regulatory factor 6 (IRF6) gene in all 3 affected members, which were not found in unaffected family members. The novel mutation leads to a frameshift and a premature stop codon which caused putative truncated protein. Protein alignment indicated high evolutionary conservation of the p.N125 residue, and this mutation was predicted by online tools to be damaging and deleterious., Conclusions: This study demonstrates that the novel mutation c.373_374dupAA (p.Asn125Lysfs*43) in the IRF6 gene corresponds to the VWS in this family. The discovery of this pathogenic variant enriches the genotypic spectrum of IRF6 gene and contributes to genetic diagnosis and counseling of families with VWS.

Objective: To probe into the influence of dexmedetomidine (DEX) on diaphragm function and postoperative outcomes of mechanically ventilated patients in the intensive care unit (ICU)., Methods: 84 patients with mechanical ventilation (MV) in the ICU of our hospital were selected as the research participants, including 38 patients in the control group (CG) sedated with midazolam (MZ) and 46 patients in the research group (RG) with DEX sedation. Ramsay sedation score, visual analogue scale (VAS), and restlessness score (RS) were used to evaluate their state before sedation (T0), as well as 2 h (T1), 6 h (T2), and 24 h (T3) after sedation, and the alterations of mean arterial pressure (MAP) and heart rate (HR) were recorded. Serum cortisol (Cor), adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), superoxide dismutase (SOD), malondialdehyde (MDA), interleukin- (IL-) 1 β , IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor- α (TNF- α ) were measured before and 24 h after sedation. The end-inspiratory diaphragm thickness (DTei) and end-expiratory diaphragm thickness (DTee) were measured within 2 h after the initiation of MV and 5 min after the spontaneous breathing test (SBT), and the diaphragm thickening fraction (DTF) was calculated. Finally, the ventilator weaning, MV time, and the incidence of adverse reactions (ADs) of the two groups were counted., Results: T0 and T3 witnessed no distinct difference in Ramsay, VAS, and RS scores between the two arms ( P > 0.05), but at T1 and T2, RG had better sedation state and lower VAS and RS scores than CG ( P < 0.05), with more stable vital signs ( P < 0.05). After sedation, the contents of oxidative stress and inflammatory factors in RG were lower, while DTee, DTei, and DTF were higher, versus CG ( P < 0.05). Moreover, RG presented higher success rate of first ventilator weaning, less MV time, and lower incidence of ADs than CG ( P < 0.05)., Conclusions: DEX is effective in mechanically ventilated patients in the ICU, which can protect patients against diaphragm function damage, improve the success rate of ventilator weaning, and benefit the postoperative outcome, with excellent and rapid sedation effect and less stress damage to patients., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Chengda Zhao et al.)

Context: The relation between the menopause transition (MT) and changes in regional fat distribution is uncertain., Objective: To determine whether the MT is associated with the development of central adiposity., Design: Longitudinal analysis from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation, spanning 1996-2013 (median follow-up 11.8 years)., Setting: Community-based., Participants: 380 women with regional body composition measures by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry. Mean baseline age was 45.7 years; racial/ethnic composition was 16% Black, 41% Japanese and 43% White., Outcomes: Changes in android, gynoid and visceral fat and waist and hip circumferences., Results: Android fat increased by 1.21% per year (py) and 5.54% py during premenopause and the MT, respectively (each P < 0.05). Visceral and gynoid fat began increasing at the MT, annualized changes were 6.24% and 2.03%, respectively (each P < 0.05). Postmenopausal annual trajectories decelerated to 1.47% (visceral), 0.90% (android), and -0.87% (gynoid), (all non-zero, P < 0.05). Waist girth grew during premenopause (0.55% py), the MT (0.96% py), and postmenopause (0.55% py) (all non-zero, P < 0.05; not statistically different from each other). Hip girth grew during premenopause (0.20% py) and the MT (0.35% py) (each non-zero, P < 0.05; not statistically different from each other) and decelerated to zero slope in postmenopause. Results are for the White referent; there were statistically significant differences in some trajectories in Black and Japanese women., Conclusions: The MT is associated with the development of central adiposity. Waist or hip circumferences are less sensitive to changes in fat distribution., (© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Endocrine Society. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

There was no difference in Trabecular Bone Score (TBS) comparing White and Black women after adjusting for body mass index (BMI) and diabetes status. Japanese women had lower TBS than White women. Our results diverge from established differences in fracture rates by race/ethnicity., Introduction: The TBS was developed as an indirect measure of vertebral bone microarchitecture derived from texture analysis of lumbar spine DXA scans. There is little information on race/ethnic differences in TBS., Methods: We compared TBS in 656 White, 492 Black, and 268 Japanese pre- and early perimenopausal women. We used a beta version of TBS that accounts for tissue thickness using DXA measured soft tissue thickness rather than BMI. The relation between BMI and tissue thickness corrected TBS differed by BMI; we used a three-segment linear spline to adjust for BMI., Results: The women were, on average, 46.5 years of age; 50% were premenopausal. In BMI and diabetes adjusted models, there was no difference in TBS between White and Black women. TBS was modestly (2%) lower in the Japanese women compared to White women, p = 0.04. In a sensitivity analysis, restricting the analysis to those with BMI 24-31 kg/m 2 , results were similar., Conclusions: TBS was similar in Black and White women after accounting for tissue thickness and adjusting for BMI, diabetes, and other covariates. The Japanese women had modestly lower TBS. These results diverge from established race/ethnic differences in fracture rates and areal bone mineral density, underscoring the need for further studies.

Breast tumor classification with multiple medical reports such as B-ultrasound, Mammography (X-ray) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is crucial to the intelligent cancer diagnosis system. Unlike the other domain texts, the medical reports have latent hierarchical syntactic structures and have hidden rich semantic information about the entities and relationships, which poses a great challenge of breast cancer classification. In this article, we proposed a Knowledge-powered Deep Breast Tumor Classification model (KDBTC), which takes the semantic information as a kind of prior knowledge and incorporated it into deep neural networks. Specially, our proposed model first uses Hierarchical Attention Bidirectional Recurrent Neural Networks (HA-BiRNNs) to encode the syntax-aware representation of medical reports in a hierarchical way. In the HA-BiRNN, a hierarchical neural network structure, consisting in two encoder layers of BiRNN (Bidirectional Recurrent Neural Networks), mirrors the hierarchical structure of medical reports, and a hierarchical attention mechanism, consisting of two levels attentions, attends to important elements within clinical report with word-level attention and sentence-level attention. Secondly, our model obtains the semantic information relevant to the medical reports from the clinical domain semantic tree, and encodes the semantic representation of medical reports by using Tree Structured Recurrent Neural Network with gated recursive units (Tree-GRUs). Finally, we classify breast tumors by combining both the syntax and semantic representations of medical reports. We evaluate our method on the real-world breast cancer medical reports, and results show that our method achieves higher performance on breast cancer classification.

This longitudinal cohort study's aim was to detect whether larger increases in C-reactive protein (CRP) predict greater amounts of subsequent bone loss in women transitioning from premenopause to postmenopause. Participants were initially 42 to 52 years of age and premenopausal or early perimenopausal. The sample included 1431 women who were not using hormone therapy and whose CRP values were not consistent with acute inflammation. Individual fixed effects (IFE) models estimated the association of log 2 CRP with subsequent bone mineral density (BMD) decline rate, adjusted for menopause transition (MT) stage (1: premenopausal or early perimenopausal; 2: late perimenopausal or early postmenopausal; or 3: late postmenopausal), body mass index, diabetes, smoking, alcohol, bone active medications, and anti-inflammatory medications. BMD decline at both the lumbar spine (LS) and femoral neck (FN) was faster for observations made in MT stage 2 than that during other stages (all p  < .001). In adjusted IFE models, MT stage modified the relation between increase in CRP and BMD decline rate (interaction p values <.05). Each within-woman doubling of CRP was associated with a 0.09% faster yearly decline in FN BMD in MT stages 1 ( p = .006) and 3 ( p = .03), and 0.10% faster decline in LS BMD in MT stage 3 only ( p = .007). Within-woman increases in CRP in premenopause and early perimenopause and in late postmenopause predict faster BMD decline in the next ~2 years, but the magnitude of CRP's effect is small. © 2021 The Authors. JBMR Plus published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Bone and Mineral Research., Competing Interests: The authors declare that no conflict of interest exists., (© 2021 The Authors. JBMR Plus published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.)

Importance: The increasing prevalence of cognitive decline, impairment, and dementia spurs intense interest in cognitive preservation strategies., Objective: To explore the longitudinal association between physical activity (PA) and cognitive performance among women at midlife., Design, Setting, and Participants: This cohort study is an analysis from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation. Enrollment occurred from 1996 through 1997, and follow-up extended into 2017. Included individuals were those who had undergone cognitive measures during the first 3 cognitive test visits and had at least 1 additional cognitive measurement. Stroke prior to baseline was an exclusion, and observations were censored for subsequent stroke. Data were analyzed from June 2018 through August 2019., Exposures: Engaging in sport or exercise PA (self-reported)., Main Outcomes and Measures: The Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT) was used to assess cognitive processing speed. The East Boston Memory Test-Delayed (EBMT-D) was used to measure verbal episodic memory. The digit span backwards (DSB) test was used to evaluate working memory., Results: Among 1718 women with a median (range) observation time of 11.9 (0.60-13.5) years, the mean (SD) baseline age was 45.7 (2.5) years. From baseline through age 61 years, mean change in SDMT score was -0.20 annually (95% CI, -0.26 to -0.15; P < .001). After age 61 years, the mean change in SDMT was -0.51 yearly (95% CI, -0.54 to -0.41; P < .001). Beginning at age 58 years of the mean change in EBMT was -0.03 yearly (95% CI, -0.04 to -0.02; P < .001). Starting at age 61 years, mean (SD) change in DSB was -0.03 annually (95% CI, -0.04 to -0.01; P = .001). When adjusted for attrition and practice effect, PA was associated with higher concurrent SDMT and EBMT scores and a smaller decrease in SDMT score. For each unit increment in PA, there was a 0.36 increment in concurrent SDMT score (95% CI, 0.14 to 0.59; P = .002) and a 0.10 increment in concurrent EBMT score (95% CI, 0.05 to 0.15; P < .001). Greater PA was associated with a smaller annual mean decrease in SDMT score (0.06 yearly; 95% CI, 0.02 to 0.09; P = .001). After additional adjustment for demographic characteristics, menopause symptoms, hormone therapy use, and the presence of diabetes and hypertension, PA was not associated with trajectories (ie, levels or slopes) of any cognitive outcome., Conclusions and Relevance: This cohort study found no association between greater PA levels and cognitive outcomes among women in midlife, unlike cohort studies that begin observations at later ages, which may be associated with confounding by reverse causation (ie, cognitive decline associated with an outcome of lower PA levels).

Background: Evidence that trabecular bone score (TBS), an index of bone microstructure, is a risk factor for future fracture comes mainly from studies of late postmenopausal women., Objective: To discern whether premenopausal TBS or early postmenopausal TBS predict fracture., Design: A 22-year, prospective analysis from the Study of Women's Health Across Nation., Setting: Community-based cohort., Participants: 272 Black, 174 Japanese, and 364 White women., Main Outcome Measures: Incident fractures: 292 in premenopausal sample and 141 in early postmenopausal sample., Results: Separate Cox proportional hazard regressions modeled time to incident fracture as a function of TBS measured during premenopause or early postmenopause. Models were initially adjusted for age, race/ethnicity, SWAN clinical site, body mass index, use of calcium, vitamin D, bone beneficial or bone adverse medication. Next, we added lumbar spine (LS) or femoral neck (FN) bone mineral density (BMD) and, finally, history of prior fracture, to the models. For each standard deviation decrement in premenopausal TBS, fracture hazard was elevated by 17% (relative hazard [RH] 1.17 [95% CI, 1.02-1.35]); after adjusting for LS or FN BMD, the relation between premenopausal TBS and fracture was no longer statistically significant. There was a similar-magnitude, marginally statistically significant, association between early postmenopausal TBS and fracture, unadjusted for BMD (RH 1.15 [0.95-1.39])., Conclusions: Variation in premenopausal TBS is related to fracture risk, but this association is not independent of BMD., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest All authors declare no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Context: Melatonin may play a role in the regulation of the human menstrual cycle and may decline with menopause and/or aging., Objective: The objective of this work is to investigate the relations between melatonin and the menstrual cycle, menopause, and aging., Methods: This was a cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of 20 participants from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN) Daily Hormone Study (DHS). The outcome measure was first-morning urine assay of 6-sulfatoxymelatonin (aMT6s), a gauge of melatonin. For each participant, aMT6s was measured daily during one premenopausal cycle with evidence of luteal activity (ELA) and one postmenopausal collection with no evidence of luteal activity (NELA)., Results: In addition to the organized patterns of hormone metabolites (estrone conjugates [E1c], and pregnanediol glucuronide [PdG]) and gonadotropins that characterized ovulatory menstrual cycles, there was a late luteal rise in aMT6s. In NELA collections, there was no periodicity of E1c, PdG, gonadotropins, or aMT6s. The strongest predictors of aMT6s levels were PdG values 11 to 12 days prior to aMT6s (β = 1.46, P = .001 and β = 1.44, P = .001, respectively). E1c and gonadotropins were not statistically significantly associated with aMT6s. Mean aMT6s in premenopause was 53.5 ng/mL, greater than the mean of 37.4 ng/mL in postmenopausal samples from the same women ( P = .0002)., Conclusions: This study confirms a late luteal melatonin rise, likely signaled by progesterone, which may influence menstrual cycle pacemaker control. Melatonin declined from premenopause to postmenopause. A high correlation between menopause transition stage and age precludes distinction between the influences of ovarian and chronological aging., (© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Endocrine Society.)

Class III malocclusion is a common dentofacial deformity. The underlying genetic alteration is largely unclear. In this study, we sought to determine the genetic etiology for Class III malocclusion. A four-generation pedigree of Class III malocclusion was recruited for exome sequencing analyses. The likely causative gene was verified via Sanger sequencing in an additional 90 unrelated sporadic Class III malocclusion patients. We identified a rare heterozygous variant in endoplasmic reticulum lectin 1 (ERLEC1; NM&#95;015701.4(ERLEC1&#95;v001):c.1237C>T, p.(His413Tyr), designated as ERLEC1-m in this article) that cosegregated with the deformity in pedigree members and three additional rare missense heterozygous variants (c.419C>G, p.(Thr140Ser), c.419C>T, p.(Thr140Ile), and c.1448A>G, p.(Asn483Ser)) in 3 of 90 unrelated sporadic subjects. Our results showed that ERLEC1 is highly expressed in mouse jaw osteoblasts and inhibits osteoblast proliferation. ERLEC1-m significantly enhanced this inhibitory effect of osteoblast proliferation. Our results also showed that the proper level of ERLEC1 expression is crucial for proper osteogenic differentiation. The ERLEC1 variant identified in this study is likely a causal mutation of Class III malocclusion. Our study reveals the genetic basis of Class III malocclusion and provides insights into the novel target for clinical management of Class III malocclusion, in addition to orthodontic treatment and orthodontic surgery., (© 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Context: Rapid bone density loss starts during the menopause transition (MT). Whether other components of bone strength deteriorate before the final menstrual period (FMP) remains uncertain., Objective: To discern whether trabecular bone score (TBS) declines during the MT., Design: An 18-year longitudinal analysis from the Study of Women's Health Across Nation., Setting: Community-based cohort., Participants: A total of 243 black, 164 Japanese, and 298 white, initially pre- or early perimenopausal women, who experienced their FMP., Main Outcome Measures: TBS, an indicator of bone strength., Results: Multivariable mixed effects regressions fitted piecewise linear models to repeated measures of TBS as a function of time before or after the FMP; covariates were age at FMP, race/ethnicity, and body mass index. Prior to 1.5 years before the FMP, in the referent individual (a white woman with age at FMP of 52.2 years and body mass index of 28.0 kg/m2), TBS evidenced no change (slope 0.12% per year, P = 0.2991). TBS loss began 1.5 years before the FMP, declining by 1.16% annually (P < 0.0001). Starting 2 years after the FMP, annual rate of TBS loss lessened to 0.89% (P < 0.0001). In the 5 years before through the 5 years after the FMP, in the referent individual, total TBS decline was 6.3% (P < 0.0001), but black participants' total TBS loss was 4.90% (P = 0.0008, difference in black and white 10-year change). Results for Japanese did not differ from those of white women., Conclusions: The occurrence of an MT-related decline in TBS supports the thesis that this period is particularly damaging to skeletal integrity., (© Endocrine Society 2019. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Succinic acid has attracted interest worldwide as a precursor of many industrially crucial chemicals. Biosynthesis of succinic acid from biomass is developing as an environmentally friendly strategy now. Conversion of sweet potato waste (SPW) to succinic acid could implement high-value utilization of biomass, cut cost of the fermentation process and reduce the pollution of environment. Engineered Escherichia coli (E. coli) strain HD134 under the control of anaerobically-induced nirB promoter from Salmonella enterica (P SnirB ) could produce about 16.30 g/L succinic acid with a yield of 0.83 g/g after 48 h on glucose. With SPW hydrolysate as the substrate, 18.65 g/L succinic acid with a yield of 0.94 g/g after 48 h fermentation achieved. Compared to SD134 under Trc control induced with Isopropyl β-D-Thiogalactoside (IPTG), this concentration and yield represented an 8.56% and 6.82% increase, respectively. The use of anaerobically-induced P SnirB not only could attain higher production of succinic acid than IPTG-induced Trc promoter, but omit cost of expensive exogenous inducers. The efficient production of succinic acid from SPW was firstly studied by anaerobically-induced P SnirB control, which achieved relative lower cost compared to glucose as substrate and IPTG as the inducer. This novel fermentation process conduces to the cosmically industrial succinic acid bioproduction., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Background: The relation between the menopause transition (MT) and changes in body composition or weight remains uncertain. We hypothesized that, independent of chronological aging, the MT would have a detrimental influence on body composition., Methods: Participants were from the longitudinal Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN) cohort. We assessed body composition by dual energy x-ray absorptiometry. Multivariable mixed effects regressions fitted piece-wise linear models to repeated measures of outcomes as a function of time before or after the final menstrual period (FMP). Covariates were age at FMP, race, study site, and hormone therapy., Results: Fat and lean mass increased prior to the MT. At the start of the MT, rate of fat gain doubled, and lean mass declined; gains and losses continued until 2 years after the FMP. After that, the trajectories of fat and lean mass decelerated to zero slope. Weight climbed linearly during premenopause without acceleration at the MT. Its trajectory became flat after the MT., Conclusion: Accelerated gains in fat mass and losses of lean mass are MT-related phenomena. The rate of increase in the sum of fat mass and lean mass does not differ between premenopause and the MT; thus, there is no discernable change in rate of weight gain at the start of the MT., Funding: NIH, Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), through the National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Nursing Research, and NIH Office of Research on Women's Health (U01NR004061, U01AG012505, U01AG012535, U01AG012531, U01AG012539, U01AG012546, U01AG012553, U01AG012554, and U01AG012495).

The roles of microRNAs (miRNAs) related to ethylene response in banana fruits remain unknown because many miRNAs are differentially expressed as the fruit ripens, making the identification of ethylene-responsive miRNAs difficult. Using newly harvested banana fruits (within 5 h after harvest) as material, we found that these fruit did not ripen when treated with 5 μL/L of ethylene for 12 h at 22 °C. Two miRNA libraries were generated from newly harvested banana fruits with and without ethylene treatment and sequenced. In total, 128 known miRNAs belonging to 42 miRNA families were obtained, and 12 novel miRNAs were identified. Among them, 22 were differentially expressed in response to ethylene treatment, among which 6 known miRNAs and their putative targets were validated using qRT-PCR. These putative targets encoded proteins including GATA, ARF, DLC, and AGO, etc. KEGG and GO analyses showed that miRNAs differentially expressed in response to ethylene mainly function in the molecular and biological processes.

A new electrocatalyst exhibiting enhanced activity and stability is designed from SnO 2 -covered multiwalled carbon nanotubes coated with 85 wt % ratio Pt nanoparticles (NPs). This catalyst showed a mass activity 6.2 times as active as that of the commercial Pt/C for methanol oxidation, owing to the unique one-dimensional structure. Moreover, the durability and antipoisoning ability were also improved greatly. The enhanced intrinsic performance was ascribed to the densely connected networks of Pt NPs on the SnO 2 NPs.

Although cross-sectional studies suggest that cognitive aging starts in midlife, few longitudinal studies have documented within-individual declines in cognitive performance before the seventh decade. Learning from repeat testing, or practice effects, can mask the decline in younger cohorts. In women, the menopause transition also affects test performance and can confound estimates of underlying decline. We designed this study to determine if, after controlling for practice effects, the menopause transition, and the symptoms associated with it, there is evidence of cognitive aging in midlife women. We used data from a longitudinal observational study in 2,124 participants from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation. Outcomes examined were scores on annual tests of processing speed, verbal episodic memory (immediate and delayed), and working memory. To reduce the impact of practice effects and of the menopause transition, we used the third cognition testing visit as the baseline. Average age at this baseline was 54 years, and the majority of the women were postmenopausal; half the cohort was 2 or more years beyond the final menstrual period. There were 7,185 cognition assessments with median follow-up time of 6.5 years. In mixed effects regression, adjusted for practice effects, retention, menopause symtoms (depressive, anxiety, vasomotor, and sleep disturbance), and covariates, scores on 2 of 4 cognition tests declined. Mean decline in cognitive speed was 0.28 per year (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.20 to 0.36) or 4.9% in 10 years, and mean decline in verbal episodic memory (delayed testing) was 0.02 per year (95% CI: 0.00 to 0.03) or 2% in 10 years. Our results provide strong, longitudinal evidence of cognitive aging in midlife women, with substantial within-woman declines in processing speed and memory. Further research is needed to identify factors that influence decline rates and to develop interventions that slow cognitive aging., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Wenshen Xiaozheng Tang (WXT), a traditional Chinese medicine prescription, exerted a good therapeutic effect on endometriosis. However, the underlying mechanism is unclear. In the present study, we sought to evaluate the effect of WXT on the proliferation and migration of ectopic endometriotic stromal cells and explore the potential molecular mechanism., Materials and Methods: Primary stromal cells derived from ectopic endometriotic lesions of patients with endometriosis were isolated and cultured. The inhibition effect of WXT on cell proliferation was determined by MTT. Apoptosis of ectopic endometriotic cells treated with WXT was analyzed with Annexin V-FITC/7-AAD staining. The activation of caspases was detected by western blot analysis. The influence of WXT on migration of ectopic endometriotic cells was measured by scratch wound healing assay and Transwell assay. The DNA binding activity of NF-κB and the expression of nuclear p65 protein were determined by electrophoretic mobility shift assay and western blot analysis, respectively. The impact of WXT on the expression of NF-κB regulated gene products involved in apoptosis and migration was determined by western blot analysis., Results: WXT inhibited the proliferation of ectopic endometriotic cells in a time- and dose-dependent manner. In addition, WXT treatment resulted in significant induction of apoptosis through the activation of caspases and inhibition of migration in ectopic endometriotic cells. WXT notably suppressed constitutive NF-κB-DNA-binding activity as well as TNF-α induced nuclear translocation of NF-κB p65 subunit in ectopic endometriotic cells. Moreover, WXT diminished the expression of NF-κB regulated gene products involved in apoptosis and migration, including c-IAP1, c-IAP2, XIAP, survivin, Mcl-1, COX-2 and MMP-9., Conclusions: Our results indicate that WXT induces apoptosis and inhibits migration of ectopic endometriotic stromal cells., (Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.)

We report an extremely rare case of an unruptured non-communicating rudimentary horn full-term pregnancy. A woman who had a uterine malformation was misdiagnosed as uterus didelphys and gave birth to a live, healthy fetus. The correct diagnosis was not made until cesarean section at 37 4/7 weeks. The case suggests that women who are pregnant in a rudimentary horn could obtain a full-term delivery and give birth to a live and healthy baby.

S and N co-doped, few-layered graphene oxide is synthesized by using pyrimidine and thiophene as precursors for the application of the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). The dual-doped catalyst with pyrrolic/graphitic N-dominant structures exhibits competitive catalytic activity (10.0 mA cm(-2) kinetic-limiting current density at -0.25 V) that is superior to that for mono N-doped carbon nanomaterials. This is because of a synergetic effect of N and S co-doping. Furthermore, the dual-doped catalyst also shows an efficient four-electron-dominant ORR process, which has excellent methanol tolerance and improved durability in comparison to commercial Pt/C catalysts., (Copyright © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Iron (II) phthalocyanine coated on single-walled carbon nanotubes was synthesized as a non-noble electrocatalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). The composite exhibited higher activity than the commercial Pt/C catalyst, and excellent anti-crossover effect for methanol oxidation in the ORR.

A rapid, sensitive and reliable high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) method was developed and validated for the determination of propiverine hydrochloride (CAS 54556-98-8) in human plasma using cetirizine di-hydrochloride as internal standard (IS, CAS 8388-51-0). Following liquid-liquid extraction with ethyl acetate, the separation was performed on a reverse phase C18 column with a mobile phase consisted of methanol-ammonium acetate (pH 4.0; 10 mM) (70:30, v/v). The detection was performed by a triple-quadrupole mass spectrometer in the positive ion and multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode, m/z 368.3 --> 116.1 for propiverine and m/z 389.2 --> 201.0 for the IS. The calibration curve fitted well over the concentration range of 0.2-200 ng/mL (all the concentration data in this study are related to salt (propiverine hydrochloride)). The limit of detection (LOD) and lower limit of quantification (LLOQ) in human plasma were 0.05 and 0.2 ng/mL, respectively. The method was proved to be rapid, sensitive, specific, accurate and reproducible and has been successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study of propiverine hydrochloride sustained release capsules (the 30 mg dose in this study is related to 30 mg of salt (propiverine hydrochloride)). The major pharmacokinetic parameters in healthy Chinese volunteers are given for the first time and the sustained release characteristics of the sustained release formulation are evaluated. [corrected].

A rapid, simple and sensitive high performance liquid chromatography with positive ion electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-MS/MS) was first developed and validated to simultaneously determine paracetamol (PAR, CAS 103-90-2), amantadine hydrochloride (ATH, CAS 665-66-7), caffeine (CAF, CAS 58-08-2) and chlorpheniramine maleate (CPM, CAS 113-92-8) in human plasma using tramadol hydrochloride (TMH, CAS 22204-88-2) as internal standard (IS). Following methanol-induced protein precipitation, the analytes were separated using a mobile phase comprised of methanol:water (0.5% formic acid) = 20:80 (v/v) on a commercially available column (150 mm x 2.1 mm I.D., 5 microm) and analyzed by electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry in the selected reaction monitoring (SRM) mode with the precursor to product ion transitions m/z 152.3-->110.2 for PAR, 152.3-->135.3 for ATH, 195.1-->138.3 for CAF, 275.2-->230.3 for CPM and 264.2-->58.2 for TMH. The standard curves were linear (r2 > 0.99) over the concentration range of 0.2-20 microg/mL for PAR, 20-2000 ng/mL for ATH and CAF, 0.1-10 ng/mL for CPM and had good accuracy and precision, respectively. The within- and between-batch precisions were less than 15% in terms of relative standard deviation (RSD). The lower limit of quantitation (LLOQ) were 0.2 microg/mL, 20 ng/mL, 20 ng/mL and 0.1 ng/mL for PAR, ATH, CAF and CPM, respectively. The described method has been successfully applied to study the pharmacokinetics of paracetamol-amantadine hydrochloride tablets in Chinese healthy male volunteers with great precision and sensitivity.

The electroanalytical behaviors of the endocrine-disrupting chemical trifluralin have been studied at a nanostructuring electrode. The nanostructuring electrode was fabricated by coating a uniform multi-wall carbon nanotubes/dihexadecyl hydrogen phosphate (MWNTs/DHP) film on glassy carbon electrode (GCE). The reduction peak currents of trifluralin increased remarkably and the reduction peak potential shifted positively at the nanostructuring electrode, compared with that at a bare GCE. The results showed that this nanostructuring electrode exhibited excellent enhancement effects on the electrochemical reduction of trifluralin. Consequently, a simple and sensitive electroanalytical method was developed for the determination of trifluralin. Under optimal conditions, a linear response of trifluralin was obtained in the range from 5.0 x 10(-9) to 6.0 x 10(-6) mol L(-1) (r=0.998) and with a limit of detect (LOD) of 2.0 x 10(-9) mol L(-1). The proposed procedure was successfully applied to determine trifluralin in soil samples with satisfactory results.