Search

Ras-GTPase-activating protein-binding protein 1 (G3BP1) is a core component and crucial regulatory switch in stress granules (SGs). When the concentration of free RNA within cells increases, it can trigger RNA-dependent liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) with G3BP1 as the core, thereby forming SGs that affect cell survival or death. In addition, G3BP1 interacts with various host proteins to regulate the expression of SGs. As a multifunctional binding protein, G3BP1 has diverse biological functions, influencing cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, and RNA metabolism and serving as a crucial regulator in signaling pathways such as Rac1-PAK1, TSC-mTORC1, NF-κB, and STAT3. Therefore, it plays a significant role in the regulation of neurodegenerative diseases, myocardial hypertrophy, and congenital immunity, and is involved in the proliferation, invasion, and metastasis of cancer cells. G3BP1 is an important antiviral factor that interacts with viral proteins, and regulates SG assembly to exert antiviral effects. This article focuses on the recent discoveries and progress of G3BP1 in biology, including its structure and function, regulation of SG formation and dissolution, and its relationships with non-neoplastic diseases, tumors, and viruses., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors have declared that no competing interest exists., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In the segmentation of aortic dissection, there are issues such as low contrast between the aortic dissection and surrounding organs and vessels, significant differences in dissection morphology, and high background noise. To address these issues, this paper proposed a reinforcement learning-based method for type B aortic dissection localization. With the assistance of a two-stage segmentation model, the deep reinforcement learning was utilized to perform the first-stage aortic dissection localization task, ensuring the integrity of the localization target. In the second stage, the coarse segmentation results from the first stage were used as input to obtain refined segmentation results. To improve the recall rate of the first-stage segmentation results and include the segmentation target more completely in the localization results, this paper designed a reinforcement learning reward function based on the direction of recall changes. Additionally, the localization window was separated from the field of view window to reduce the occurrence of segmentation target loss. Unet, TransUnet, SwinUnet, and MT-Unet were selected as benchmark segmentation models. Through experiments, it was verified that the majority of the metrics in the two-stage segmentation process of this paper performed better than the benchmark results. Specifically, the Dice index improved by 1.34%, 0.89%, 27.66%, and 7.37% for each respective model. In conclusion, by incorporating the type B aortic dissection localization method proposed in this paper into the segmentation process, the overall segmentation accuracy is improved compared to the benchmark models. The improvement is particularly significant for models with poorer segmentation performance.

Background: In order to contribute new insights for future prevention and treatment of intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP), and to promote positive pregnancy outcomes, we evaluated serum Ca 2+ levels and inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor (InsP3R) expression in the liver tissue of a rat ICP model., Methods: After establishing the model by injection of oestradiol benzoate and progesterone into pregnant rats, animals were divided into normal control ( n  = 5) and ICP model groups ( n  = 5). The expression of InsP3R protein in the liver, and serum levels of Ca 2+ , glycocholic acid and bile acid were detected., Results: InsP3R mRNA and protein were significantly lower in the ICP model group compared to the normal group, as determined by qPCR and immunohistochemistry, respectively. Serum enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay results revealed significantly higher levels of glycocholic acid and bile acid in the ICP model group compared to the normal group, while Ca 2+ levels were significantly lower. The levers of Ca 2+ were significantly and negatively correlated with the levels of glycocholic acid. The observed decrease in Ca 2+ was associated with an increase in total bile acids, but there was no significant correlation., Conclusions: Our results revealed that the expression of InsP3R and serum Ca 2+ levels was significantly decreased in the liver tissue of ICP model rats. Additionally, Ca 2+ levels were found to be negatively correlated with the level of glycocholic acid.

Aims: Specific identification of a hydatidiform mole (HM) and subclassification of a complete hydatidiform mole (CHM) or partial hydatidiform mole (PHM) are critical. This study aimed to reappraise the diagnostic performance of ultrasonography and histology with a refined diagnosis., Methods: This was a retrospective, multicentre cohort study of 821 patients with histologically suspected HM specimens. Refined diagnostic algorithms with p57 immunohistochemistry and short tandem repeat (STR) genotyping were performed and used as the true standard for assessing the diagnostic performance of the original ultrasonography and morphology methods. The diagnostic performance was calculated using accuracy, agreement rate, sensitivity and the positive predictive value (PPV) compared with refined diagnostic results., Results: Of the 821 histologically suspected HM cases included, 788 (95.98%) were successfully reclassified into 448 CHMs, 213 PHMs and 127 non-molar (NM) abortuses. Ultrasonography showed an overall accuracy of 44.38%, with a sensitivity of 44.33% for CHM and 37.5% for PHM. The overall classification accuracy of the original morphological diagnosis was 65.97%. After exclusion of the initially untyped HMs, the overall agreement rate was 59.11% (κ=0.364, p<0.0001) between the original and refined diagnoses, with a sensitivity of 40.09% and PPV of 96.05% for diagnosing CHMs and a sensitivity of 84.98% and a PPV of 45.59% for diagnosing PHMs. The interinstitutional variability of morphology in diagnosing HMs was significant among the 15 centres (range, 8.33%-100.00%, p<0.0001)., Conclusion: The current diagnosis of HM based solely on ultrasound or morphology remains problematic, and ancillary techniques, particularly p57 immunohistochemistry and DNA genotyping, should be integrated into routine practice as much as possible., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

The objective of this study was to assess alterations in maxillary sinus mucosa thickness and the distances between the apexes of specific teeth and the maxillary sinus base in adult patients undergoing orthodontic treatment with the extraction of four first premolars. Twenty-one adults, averaging 24.85 years of age, received orthodontic therapy involving the extraction of all four first premolars. Cone-beam computed tomography scans were conducted before and after treatment to evaluate changes. Notably, post-treatment scans revealed a significant increase (P= 0.044) in the distance between the apex of the second premolar and the maxillary sinus floor, with an average augmentation of 1.0141 millimeters. However, no notable alterations were detected in the distances between the apexes of other teeth and the maxillary sinus or in maxillary sinus mucosa thickness. These findings suggest that orthodontic treatment with the extraction of four first premolars may elevate the distance between the maxillary sinus floor and the second premolar apex, which provides a reference for risk assessment and surgical design of first premolar extraction during orthodontic treatment., Competing Interests: Human subjects: Consent was obtained or waived by all participants in this study. Ethics Committee of West China Hospital of Stomatology, Sichuan University issued approval WCHSIRB-CT-2021-479. Animal subjects: All authors have confirmed that this study did not involve animal subjects or tissue. Conflicts of interest: In compliance with the ICMJE uniform disclosure form, all authors declare the following: Payment/services info: This study was funded by the Angelalign Scientific Research Fund (No. SDTS21-5-14). Financial relationships: All authors have declared that they have no financial relationships at present or within the previous three years with any organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work. Other relationships: All authors have declared that there are no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work., (Copyright © 2024, Xue et al.)

Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest All authors disclosed no relevant relationships.

Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder. Due to the subtlety of symptoms in the early stages of AD, rapid and accurate clinical diagnosis is challenging, leading to a high rate of misdiagnosis. Current research on early diagnosis of AD has not sufficiently focused on tracking the progression of the disease over an extended period in subjects. To address this issue, this paper proposes an ensemble model for assisting early diagnosis of AD that combines structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) data from two time points with clinical information. The model employs a three-dimensional convolutional neural network (3DCNN) and twin neural network modules to extract features from the sMRI data of subjects at two time points, while a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) is used to model the clinical information of the subjects. The objective is to extract AD-related features from the multi-modal data of the subjects as much as possible, thereby enhancing the diagnostic performance of the ensemble model. Experimental results show that based on this model, the classification accuracy rate is 89% for differentiating AD patients from normal controls (NC), 88% for differentiating mild cognitive impairment converting to AD (MCIc) from NC, and 69% for distinguishing non-converting mild cognitive impairment (MCInc) from MCIc, confirming the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method for early diagnosis of AD, as well as its potential to play a supportive role in the clinical diagnosis of early Alzheimer's disease.

The integration of structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) and deep learning techniques is one of the important research directions for the automatic diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Despite the satisfactory performance achieved by existing voxel-based models based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs), such models only handle AD-related brain atrophy at a single spatial scale and lack spatial localization of abnormal brain regions based on model interpretability. To address the above limitations, we propose a traceable interpretability model for AD recognition based on multi-patch attention (MAD-Former). MAD-Former consists of two parts: recognition and interpretability. In the recognition part, we design a 3D brain feature extraction network to extract local features, followed by constructing a dual-branch attention structure with different patch sizes to achieve global feature extraction, forming a multi-scale spatial feature extraction framework. Meanwhile, we propose an important attention similarity position loss function to assist in model decision-making. The interpretability part proposes a traceable method that can obtain a 3D ROI space through attention-based selection and receptive field tracing. This space encompasses key brain tissues that influence model decisions. Experimental results reveal the significant role of brain tissues such as the Fusiform Gyrus (FuG) in AD recognition. MAD-Former achieves outstanding performance in different tasks on ADNI and OASIS datasets, demonstrating reliable model interpretability.

Objective: To compare the hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) risk between vaginal and intramuscular (IM) progesterone in programmed frozen-thawed embryo transfer (FET) cycles., Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study at a tertiary hospital, and only women who achieved ongoing pregnancy after programmed FET between January 2018 and June 2022 were included. Women with chronic hypertension before pregnancy or with history of gestational hypertension or pre-eclampsia in previous pregnancies were excluded. All women were divided into IM progesterone or vaginal progesterone groups according to the route of progesterone supplementation. Follow-up information on obstetric complications and neonatal outcomes were obtained by telephonic interviews. The primary outcome was HDP. Association between routes of progesterone supplementation and HDP was assessed by subgroup analysis and multivariable logistic regression., Results: A total of 5891 programmed FET cycles (3196 IM progesterone cycles and 2695 vaginal progesterone cycles) were included in the analysis. The prevalence of HDP in the IM progesterone group was significantly lower than that of the vaginal progesterone group (6.54% vs 9.17%, P < 0.001). Therein, the prevalence of gestational hypertension (3.57% vs 4.94%, P = 0.009) and pre-eclampsia (2.97% vs 4.23%, P = 0.009) in the IM progesterone group were all significantly lower as compared to the vaginal progesterone group. According to subgroup analysis, IM progesterone was associated with lower HDP risk in all subgroups. The logistic regression analysis showed that the IM progesterone cycles were associated with lower risk of HDP compared to vaginal progesterone cycles (adjusted odds ratio 0.66, 95% CI: 0.54-0.80, P < 0.001)., Conclusion: Among women undergoing programmed FET cycles, progesterone supplementation with IM progesterone was associated with reduced HDP risk compared to vaginal progesterone., (© 2024 International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics.)

Background and Objective: Lung tumor annotation is a key upstream task for further diagnosis and prognosis. Although deep learning techniques have promoted automation of lung tumor segmentation, there remain challenges impeding its application in clinical practice, such as a lack of prior annotation for model training and data-sharing among centers., Methods: In this paper, we use data from six centers to design a novel federated semi-supervised learning (FSSL) framework with dynamic model aggregation and improve segmentation performance for lung tumors. To be specific, we propose a dynamically updated algorithm to deal with model parameter aggregation in FSSL, which takes advantage of both the quality and quantity of client data. Moreover, to increase the accessibility of data in the federated learning (FL) network, we explore the FAIR data principle while the previous federated methods never involve., Result: The experimental results show that the segmentation performance of our model in six centers is 0.9348, 0.8436, 0.8328, 0.7776, 0.8870 and 0.8460 respectively, which is superior to traditional deep learning methods and recent federated semi-supervised learning methods., Conclusion: The experimental results demonstrate that our method is superior to the existing FSSL methods. In addition, our proposed dynamic update strategy effectively utilizes the quality and quantity information of client data and shows efficiency in lung tumor segmentation. The source code is released on (https://github.com/GDPHMediaLab/FedDUS)., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest There are no conflicts of interest to declare., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Kidney diseases pose a significant threat to human health due to their high prevalence and mortality rates. Worryingly, the clinical use of drugs for kidney diseases is associated with more side effects, so more effective and safer treatments are urgently needed. Oleanolic acid (OA) is a common pentacyclic triterpenoid that is widely available in nature and has been shown to have protective effects in kidney disease. However, comprehensive studies on its role in kidney diseases are still lacking. Therefore, this article first explores the botanical sources, pharmacokinetics, derivatives, and safety of OA, followed by a summary of the anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, anti-oxidative stress, autophagy-enhancing, and antifibrotic effects of OA and its analogues in renal diseases, and an analysis of the molecular mechanisms, aiming to provide further insights for the development of novel drugs for the treatment of kidney diseases., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Background: Mitochondrial dynamics play a fundamental role in determining stem cell fate. However, the underlying mechanisms of mitochondrial dynamics in the stemness acquisition of cancer cells are incompletely understood., Methods: Metabolomic profiling of cells were analyzed by MS/MS. The genomic distribution of H3K27me3 was measured by CUT&Tag. Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) cells depended on glucose or glutamine fueling TCA cycle were monitored by 13C-isotope tracing. Organoids and tumors from patients and mice were treated with DRP1 inhibitors mdivi-1, ferroptosis inducer erastin, or combination with mdivi-1 and erastin to evaluate treatment effects., Results: Mitochondria of OSCC stem cells own fragment mitochondrial network and DRP1 is required for maintenance of their globular morphology. Imbalanced mitochondrial dynamics induced by DRP1 knockdown suppressed stemness of OSCC cells. Elongated mitochondria increased α-ketoglutarate levels and enhanced glutaminolysis to fuel the TCA cycle by increasing glutamine transporter ASCT2 expression. α-KG promoted the demethylation of histone H3K27me3, resulting in downregulation of SNAI2 associated with stemness and EMT. Significantly, suppressing DRP1 enhanced the anticancer effects of ferroptosis., Conclusion: Our study reveals a novel mechanism underlying mitochondrial dynamics mediated cancer stemness acquisition and highlights the therapeutic potential of mitochondria elongation to increase the susceptibility of cancer cells to ferroptosis., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

Natural products can overcome the limitations of conventional chemotherapy. Acetyl-11-keto-beta-boswellic acid (AKBA) as a natural product extracted from frankincense, exhibited chemotherapeutic activities in different cancers. However, whether AKBA exerts inhibiting effect of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) cells growth and the mechanism need to be explored. We attempted to investigate the therapeutic effects of AKBA against OSCC and explore the mechanism involved. Here we attempt to disclose the cell-killing effect of AKBA on OSCC cell lines and try to figure out the specifical pathway. The presence of increase autophagosome and the production of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species were confirmed after the application of AKBA on OSCC cells, and RAB7B inhibition enhanced autophagosome accumulation. Though the increase autophagosome was detected induced by AKBA, autophagic flux was inhibited as the failure fusion of autophagosome and lysosome. Cal27 xenografts were established to verify the role of anti-OSCC cells of AKBA in vivo. Based above findings, we speculate that natural product AKBA suppresses OSCC cells growth via RAB7B-mediated autophagy and may serve as a promising strategy for the therapy of OSCC., 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 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Despite extensive studies on the thermodynamic mechanism governing molecular adsorption at the solid-water interface, a comprehensive understanding of the crucial role of interface properties in mediating the entropy-enthalpy compensation during adsorption is lacking, particularly at a quantitative level. Herein, we employed two types of surface models (hydroxyapatite and graphene) along with a series of amino acids to successfully elucidate how distinct interfacial features dictate the delicate balance between entropy and enthalpy variations. The adsorption of all amino acids on the hydroxyapatite surface is an enthalpy-dominated process, where the water-induced enthalpic component of the free energy and the surface-adsorbate electrostatic interaction term alternatively act as the driving force for adsorption in different regions of the surface. Although favorable interactions are observed between amino acids and the graphene surface, the entropy-enthalpy compensation exhibits dependence on the molecular size of the adsorbates. For small amino acids, favorable enthalpy changes predominantly determine their adsorption behavior; however, larger amino acids tend to bind more tightly with the graphene surface, which is thermodynamically dominated by the entropy variations despite the structural characteristics of amino acids. This study reveals specific entropy-enthalpy mechanisms underlying amino acid adsorption at the solid-liquid interface, providing guidance for surface design and synthesis of new biomolecules.

There are few histological studies on multifidus after lumbar surgery, and it is not clear whether multifidus changes affect the clinical outcome after lumbar surgery. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between multifidus changes and clinical outcomes after lumbar surgery. Patients underwent internal fixation removal after lumbar posterior surgery were enrolled. Patients were divided into a low back pain (LBP) group (n = 15) and a non-low back pain (non-LBP) group (n = 10).The Oswestry disability index (ODI) and visual analog scale (VAS) were completed. 18 patients with lumbar fracture surgery were included as the control group. Multifidus morphological changes were observed by hematoxylin and eosin and Masson staining. The expression of TGF-β1 was observed by immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence and Western blot. The cross-sectional area (CSA) of the multifidus in the non-LBP group and the control group were greater than those in the LBP group. TGF-β1 expression and gray value ratio in the non-LBP group and the control group were lower than those in the LBP group. The multifidus CSA and TGF-β1 expression in multifidus were strongly correlated with ODI and VAS. Patients with LBP after posterior lumbar surgery suffered from atrophy and fibrosis lesions in the multifidus, and the degree of multifidus lesions was closely related to dysfunction and pain, which might be one of the causes of LBP after posterior lumbar surgery., Competing Interests: The authors have no funding and conflicts of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2024 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)

Adaptive interpretable ensemble model based on three-dimensional Convolutional Neural Network (3DCNN) and Genetic Algorithm (GA), i.e., 3DCNN+EL+GA, was proposed to differentiate the subjects with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) or Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and further identify the discriminative brain regions significantly contributing to the classifications in a data-driven way. Plus, the discriminative brain sub-regions at a voxel level were further located in these achieved brain regions, with a gradient-based attribution method designed for CNN. Besides disclosing the discriminative brain sub-regions, the testing results on the datasets from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) and the Open Access Series of Imaging Studies (OASIS) indicated that 3DCNN+EL+GA outperformed other state-of-the-art deep learning algorithms and that the achieved discriminative brain regions (e.g., the rostral hippocampus, caudal hippocampus, and medial amygdala) were linked to emotion, memory, language, and other essential brain functions impaired early in the AD process. Future research is needed to examine the generalizability of the proposed method and ideas to discern discriminative brain regions for other brain disorders, such as severe depression, schizophrenia, autism, and cerebrovascular diseases, using neuroimaging., Competing Interests: VII.Declaration of Interest The authors declare that the research was conducted without any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Brandt's vole (Lasiopodomys brandtii) is a species with hypoxia tolerance, and glucose serves as the primary energy substrate under hypoxia. However, the glucose supply in Brandt's voles under hypoxia has not been studied. This study aimed to investigate characteristics in physiological indices and liver gene expression associated with glucose supply in Brandt's voles under hypoxia. Serum glucose of Brandt's voles remained stable under 10% O 2 , increased under 7.5% O 2 , and decreased under 5% O 2 . Serum lactate increased under 10% O 2 , decreased under 7.5% O 2 , increased at 6 h and decreased at 12 h under 5% O 2 . Liver glycogen increased under 10% O 2 , remained constant under 7.5% O 2 , and reduced under 5% O 2 . Pepck and G6pase expression associated with gluconeogenesis decreased under 10% O 2 , while Pepck expression decreased and G6pase expression increased under 7.5% and 5% O 2 . Regarding genes related to glycogen metabolism, Gys expression decreased at all oxygen concentrations, Phk expression increased under 5% O 2 , and Gp expression increased under 7.5% and 5% O 2 . The alterations in glucose, lactate, liver glycogen, and gene expression related to glycogenolysis in Kunming mice (Mus musculus, control species) are similar to discovery of Brandt's voles under 7.5% O 2 , but gene expression involved in gluconeogenesis and glycogen synthesis increased. The findings suggest that Brandt's voles are more tolerant to hypoxia than Kunming mice, and their physiological indices and liver gene expression related to glucose supply exhibit species- and oxygen concentration-specific responses to hypoxia. This research offers novel insights for studying hypoxia tolerance of Brandt's voles., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest All authors declare that they have no competing interests., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an irreversible neurodegenerative disorder that damages patients' memory and cognitive abilities. Therefore, the diagnosis of AD holds significant importance. The interactions between regions of interest (ROIs) in the brain often involve multiple areas collaborating in a nonlinear manner. Leveraging these nonlinear higher-order interaction features to their fullest potential contributes to enhancing the accuracy of AD diagnosis. To address this, a framework combining nonlinear higher-order feature extraction and three-dimensional (3D) hypergraph neural networks is proposed for computer-assisted diagnosis of AD. First, a support vector machine regression model based on the radial basis function kernel was trained on ROI data to obtain a base estimator. Then, a recursive feature elimination algorithm based on the base estimator was applied to extract nonlinear higher-order features from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. These features were subsequently constructed into a hypergraph, leveraging the complex interactions captured in the data. Finally, a four-dimensional (4D) spatiotemporal hypergraph convolutional neural network model was constructed based on the fMRI data for classification. Experimental results on the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database demonstrated that the proposed framework outperformed the Hyper Graph Convolutional Network (HyperGCN) framework by 8% and traditional two-dimensional (2D) linear feature extraction methods by 12% in the AD/normal control (NC) classification task. In conclusion, this framework demonstrates an improvement in AD classification compared to mainstream deep learning methods, providing valuable evidence for computer-assisted diagnosis of AD.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) accounts for about half of non-communicable diseases. Vessel stenosis in the coronary artery is considered to be the major risk of CVD. Computed tomography angiography (CTA) is one of the widely used noninvasive imaging modalities in coronary artery diagnosis due to its superior image resolution. Clinically, segmentation of coronary arteries is essential for the diagnosis and quantification of coronary artery disease. Recently, a variety of works have been proposed to address this problem. However, on one hand, most works rely on in-house datasets, and only a few works published their datasets to the public which only contain tens of images. On the other hand, their source code have not been published, and most follow-up works have not made comparison with existing works, which makes it difficult to judge the effectiveness of the methods and hinders the further exploration of this challenging yet critical problem in the community. In this paper, we propose a large-scale dataset for coronary artery segmentation on CTA images. In addition, we have implemented a benchmark in which we have tried our best to implement several typical existing methods. Furthermore, we propose a strong baseline method which combines multi-scale patch fusion and two-stage processing to extract the details of vessels. Comprehensive experiments show that the proposed method achieves better performance than existing works on the proposed large-scale dataset. The benchmark and the dataset are published at https://github.com/XiaoweiXu/ImageCAS-A-Large-Scale-Dataset-and-Benchmark-for-Coronary-Artery-Segmentation-based-on-CT., 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 © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: There is a wealth of poorly utilized unstructured data on lymphoma metabolism, and scientometrics and visualization study could serve as a robust tool to address this issue. Hence, it was implemented., Methods: After strict quality control, numerous data regarding the lymphoma metabolism were mined, quantified, cleaned, fused, and visualized from documents (n = 2925) limited from 2013 to 2022 using R packages, VOSviewer, and GraphPad Prism., Results: The linear fitting analysis generated functions predicting the annual publication number (y = 31.685x - 63628, R² = 0.93614, Prediction in 2027: 598) and citation number (y = 1363.7x - 2746019, R² = 0.94956, Prediction in 2027: 18201). In the last decade, the most academically performing author, journal, country, and affiliation were Meignan Michel (n = 35), European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (n = 1653), USA (n = 3114), and University of Pennsylvania (n = 86), respectively. The hierarchical clustering based on unsupervised learning further divided research signatures into five clusters, including the basic study cluster (Cluster 1, Total Link Strength [TLS] = 1670, Total Occurrence [TO] = 832) and clinical study cluster (Cluster 3, TLS = 3496, TO = 1328). The timeline distribution indicated that radiomics and artificial intelligence (Cluster 4, Average Publication Year = 2019.39 ± 0.21) is a relatively new research cluster, and more endeavors deserve. Research signature burst and linear regression analysis further confirmed the findings above and revealed additional important results, such as tumor microenvironment (a = 0.6848, R² = 0.5194, p = 0.019) and immunotherapy (a = 1.036, R² = 0.6687, p = 0.004). More interestingly, by performing a "Walktrap" algorithm, the community map indicated that the "apoptosis, metabolism, chemotherapy" (Centrality = 12, Density = 6), "lymphoma, pet/ct, prognosis" (Centrality = 11, Density = 1), and "genotoxicity, mutagenicity" (Centrality = 9, Density = 4) are crucial but still under-explored, illustrating the potentiality of these research signatures in the field of the lymphoma metabolism., Conclusion: This study comprehensively mines valuable information and offers significant predictions about lymphoma metabolism for its clinical and experimental practice., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Guo, Pan, Su, Huang, Zhou, Huang and Tian.)

Triggering economic growth is a requirement to promote human welfare and realize sustainable development in many developing countries. However, place-based policies' impact on economic growth is debatable, and its underlying mechanism is unknown. China's Old Revolutionary Development Program (ORDP) is a large-scale and novel type of place-based policy targeted at undeveloped regions in China. We evaluate the effect of ORDP on economic growth by employing a time-varying difference-in-differences model and further explore the potential mechanisms and heterogeneity effects. VIIRS/DNB nightlight data is used to measure economic growth. We find that ORDP can significantly promote economic growth by 4.0% and the result is still robust after several tests. Mechanism analysis shows that ORDP can improve economic growth through government intervention, industrial structure optimization, and information infrastructure construction. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the ORDP performs better on economic growth in central Chinese cities and high-economy cities. At the same time, our paper provides three practical suggestions for stimulating economic growth in ORDP, which can be enlightening for other developing countries., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Pan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Brandt's vole (Lasiopodomys brandtii) is a hypoxia-tolerant species, and the metabolic characteristics of hypoxia-tolerant species have become a focus of recent research. However, insights into the anaerobic and aerobic metabolism of the livers of Brandt's voles under hypoxia remain limited. In this study, Brandt's voles and hypoxia-intolerant Kunming mice (Mus musculus, control species) were exposed to hypoxia conditions (Brandt's voles, 10% and 7.5% O 2 ; Kunming mice, 10% O 2 ) for 24 h, and changes in gene expression and enzyme activity related to anaerobic and aerobic metabolism in the livers were evaluated. Phosphofructokinase 1 (PFK1), phosphofructokinase 2 (PFK2), pyruvate kinase muscle (PKM), hexokinase 2 (HK2), and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) related to anaerobic metabolism in the livers of Brandt's voles were increased under 7.5% O 2 . Regarding gene expression and enzyme activity for aerobic metabolism in Brandt's voles under 7.5% and 10% O 2 , pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 1 (PDK1) expression was up-regulated, and succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) activity was decreased. In the livers of Kunming mice, gene expression related to anaerobic and aerobic metabolism was increased at the late stage of 10% O 2 , and SDH activity was enhanced at 6 h and reduced at 18 h. In addition, PFK1,PKM, PDK1 expression and SDH activity in Brandt's voles were significantly correlated with HIF-1a expression. PFK1, PKM, LDHand PDK1 expression in Kunming mice were significantly correlated with HIF-1a expression. These findings indicate that the livers of Brandt's voles have a certain tolerance to hypoxia, and metabolic changes play important roles in hypoxia tolerance., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest All authors declared that they have no conflicts of interest relevant to this study., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The effectiveness of place-based policies on carbon emission is controversial, and particularly the mechanism behind its effectiveness is unknown. We treat China's Old Revolutionary Development Program (ORDP)- a large-scale and novel type of place-based policy targeted at undeveloped regions, as a natural experiment to estimate ORDP's impact on carbon emission. Employing the panel data of 110 prefecture-level cities in China from 2010 to 2019, we perform a time-varying difference-in-differences (DID) study and discover that ORDP leads to an average of 26.7% increase in carbon emission and this effect takes a period to emerge and is not sustainable in the long term. Three mechanisms that may result in such impact are that ORDP improves economic development, changes industrial structure, and decreases technological progress. Further heterogeneity analysis indicates that ORDP results in a greater increased impact on carbon emission in old revolutionary cities that are located in western China compared to those located in central and eastern China., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of 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., (© 2023 The Authors.)

Goals: To comprehensively compare the wet suction technique with the conventional dry suction technique for endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) in solid lesions., Background: Optimal suction techniques for EUS-FNA remain uncertain when approaching solid lesions., Study: We performed a retrospective study of EUS-FNA at 3 medical centers in China. A total of 203 patients were enrolled who received 2 passes of EUS-FNA with 22-G needles. If the first pass underwent dry suction, the second pass was wet suction. Otherwise, the order of suction technique is opposite. Diagnostic accuracy, sample quality (including cellularity and blood contamination), and sample quantity (including specimen adequacy, the maximum intact specimen length, and the total specimen length) were compared between wet-suction and dry-suction techniques., Results: The patients included 143 pancreatic lesions and 60 nonpancreatic lesions. Compared with the dry suction technique, the wet suction technique yielded a significantly higher diagnostic accuracy (85.22% vs. 72.41%, P =0.002), better specimen adequacy score and cellularity score ( P <0.0001), and lower blood contamination score ( P <0.0001). In the subgroup analysis, wet suction provided significantly higher diagnostic accuracy in pancreatic cancer without chronic pancreatitis ( P <0.05), and better cellularity score and specimen adequacy score, lower blood contamination score, and longer maximum intact specimen length and total specimen length in various lesions than that in dry suction., Conclusions: The wet suction technique resulted in significantly higher diagnostic accuracy in pancreatic cancer without chronic pancreatitis, and better cellularity and histologic specimen in most of solid lesions., (Copyright © 2022 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.)

Swine acute diarrhea syndrome coronavirus (SADS-CoV) is a newly discovered alphacoronavirus with zoonotic potential that causes diarrhea and vomiting mainly in piglets. Having emerged suddenly in 2017, the prevailing opinion is that the virus originated from HKU2, an alphacoronavirus whose primary host is bats, and at some unknown point achieved interspecies transmission via some intermediate. Here, we further explore the evolutionary history and possible cross-species transmission event for SADS-CoV. Coevolutionary analysis demonstrated that HKU2 may have achieved host switch via SADS-related (SADSr)-CoV, which was isolated from the genus Rhinolophus in 2017. SADS-CoV, HKU2, and SADSr-CoV share similar codon usage patterns and showed a lower tendency to use CpG, which may reflect a method of immune escape. The analyses of virus-host coevolution and recombination support SADSr-CoV is the direct source of SADS-CoV that may have undergone recombination events during its formation. Structure-based spike glycoprotein variance analysis revealed a more nuanced evolutionary pathway to receptor recognition for host switch. We did not find a possible positive selection site, and the dN/dS of the S gene was only 0.29, which indicates that the current SADS-CoV is slowly evolving. These results provide new insights that may help predict future cross-species transmission, and possibly surveil future zoonotic outbreaks and associated public health emergencies., (© 2023 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Introduction: In frozen-thawed embryo transfer (FET) cycles, hormone replacement treatment (HRT) was associated with a higher risk of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) compared with natural cycles (NC). Multiple pregnancy was a risk factor for HDP and several studies did not conduct subgroup analysis of singleton pregnancy and multiple pregnancy., Objective: To investigate whether HRT regimen could be a risk factor for HDP in women undergoing FET cycles in singleton and twin pregnancies., Methods: A retrospective cohort study at a tertiary hospital, including a total of 9120 women who underwent FET and achieved ongoing pregnancy; 7590 patients underwent HRT-FET and 1530 NC-FET. The main outcome was HDP. HDP were analyzed for singleton and twin pregnancies, respectively., Results: In the singleton pregnancy, the risk of HDP in the HRT-FET group was significantly higher than that in the NC-FET group (6.21% vs. 4.09%; P =0.003). After adjusting for female age oocyte pick up, female age at FET and body mass index (BMI), HRT was found as a risk factor for HDP (adjusted odds ration [aOR]: 1.43; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.07 to 1.91; P =0.017). In the multiple pregnancy, the risk of HDP in the HRT-FET and NC-FET groups was similar., Conclusion: HRT was associated with a higher risk of HDP in women who underwent FET and achieved singleton pregnancy., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Fan, Li, Liu, Li, Cai, Pan, Wang, Shi, Qu and Shi.)

Head and neck cancer (HNC) is the seventh most prevalent malignancy worldwide in 2020. Cancer metastasis is the main cause of poor prognosis in HNC patients. Recently, circular RNAs (circRNAs), initially thought to have no biological function, are attracting increasing attention, and their crucial roles in mediating HNC metastasis are being extensively investigated. Existing studies have shown that circRNAs primarily function through miRNA sponges, transcriptional regulation, interacting with RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) and as translation templates. Among these functions, the function of miRNA sponge is the most prominent. In this review, we summarized the reported circRNAs involved in HNC metastasis, aiming to elucidate the regulatory relationship between circRNAs and HNC metastasis. Furthermore, we summarized the latest advances in the epidemiological information of HNC metastasis and the tumor metastasis theories, the biogenesis, characterization and functional mechanisms of circRNAs, and their potential clinical applications. Although the research on circRNAs is still in its infancy, circRNAs are expected to serve as prognostic markers and effective therapeutic targets to inhibit HNC metastasis and significantly improve the prognosis of HNC patients., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2023 The Authors. Cancer Innovation published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. on behalf of Tsinghua University Press.)

The effectiveness of environmental regulations on green total factor productivity (GTFP) is controversial, and the mechanisms of the relationship between environmental regulation and GTFP are unknown. In this article, we take advantage of the Environmental Protection Interview (EPI) program-the harshest environmental monitoring program in Chinese history-to carry out a natural experiment to estimate the effect of environmental regulation on GTFP. Applying a time-varying difference-in-differences model based on city panel data from 2003 to 2018 in China, we determined that the EPI can lead to an average GTFP promotion of 35.6%, but the effect of the EPI is not consistent in the long term. A heterogeneity analysis documented that the effect of the EPI on GTFP is more significant in cities with low initial GTFP levels and low economic levels. A mechanism analysis showed that the EPI increases GTFP, basically, through technical creativity and industrial structure upgrading.

Deep learning (DL) on brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data has shown excellent performance in differentiating individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, the value of DL in detecting progressive structural MRI (sMRI) abnormalities linked to AD pathology has yet to be established. In this study, an interpretable DL algorithm named the Ensemble of 3-dimensional convolutional neural network (Ensemble 3DCNN) with enhanced parsing techniques is proposed to investigate the longitudinal trajectories of whole-brain sMRI changes denoting AD onset and progression. A set of 2369 T1-weighted images from the multi-centre Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative and Open Access Series of Imaging Studies cohorts are applied to model derivation, validation, testing, and pattern analysis. An Ensemble-3DCNN-based P-score is generated, based on which multiple brain regions, including amygdala, insular, parahippocampal, and temporal gyrus, exhibit early and connected progressive neurodegeneration. Complex individual variability in the sMRI is also observed. This study combining non-invasive sMRI and interpretable DL in detecting patterned sMRI changes confirmed AD pathological progression, shedding new light on predicting AD progression using whole-brain sMRI., (© 2022 The Authors. Advanced Science published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

3D medical image segmentation has an essential role in medical image analysis, while attention mechanism has improved the performance by a large margin. However, existing methods obtained the attention coefficient in a small receptive field, resulting in possible performance limitations. Radiologists usually scan all the slices first to have an overall idea of the target, and then analyze regions of interest in multiple 2D views in clinic practice. We simulate radiologists' recognition process and propose to exploit the 3D context information in a deeper manner for accurate 3D medical images segmentation. Due to the similarity of human body structure, medical images of different populations have highly similar shape and location information, so we use target region distillation to extract the common segmented region information. Particularly, we proposed two optimizations including Target Area Distillation and Section Attention. Target Area Distillation adds positions information to the original input to let the network has an initial attention of the target, while section attention performs attention extraction in three 2D sections thus with large range of receptive field. We compare our method against several popular networks in two public datasets including ImageCHD and COVID-19. Experimental results show that our proposed method improves the segmentation Dice score by 2-4% over the state-of-the-art methods. Our code has been released to the public (Anonymous link)., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestThe author confirms that there is no confict of interest., (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022, Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.)

Objective: Oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMDs) are a spectrum of diseases that harbor the potential of malignant transformation and developing into oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Narrow band imaging (NBI) has been clinically utilized for the adjuvant diagnosis of OPMD and OSCC. This study aimed to comprehensively evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of NBI for malignant transformations of OPMD by applying the intraepithelial papillary capillary loop (IPCL) classification approach., Methods: Studies reporting the diagnostic validity of NBI in the detection of OPMD/OSCC were selected. Four databases were searched and 11 articles were included in the meta-analysis. We performed four subgroup analyses by defining IPCL I/II as negative diagnostic results and no/mild dysplasia as negative pathological outcome. Pooled data were analyzed using random-effects models. Meta-regression analysis was performed to explore heterogeneity., Results: After pooled analysis of the four subgroups, we found that subgroup 1, defining IPCL II and above as a clinically positive result, demonstrated the most optimal overall diagnostic accuracy for the malignant transformation of OPMDs, with a sensitivity and specificity of NBI of 0.87 (95% confidence interval (CI) [0.67, 0.96], p  < 0.001) and 0.83 [95% CI (0.56, 0.95), p  < 0.001], respectively; while the other 3 subgroups displayed relatively low sensitivity or specificity., Conclusions: NBI is a promising and non-invasive adjunctive tool for identifying malignant transformations of OPMDs. The IPCL grading is currently a sound criterion for the clinical application of NBI. After excluding potentially false positive results, these oral lesions classified as IPCL II or above are suggested to undergo biopsy for early and accurate diagnosis as well as management., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (© 2023 Zhang, Wu, Pan, Zhang, Jiang, Feng, Jiang, Luo and Chen.)

Abstract Background/purpose: Recurrent aphthous ulcer (RAU) is one of the most common diseases of oral mucosa, which is generally believed to be related to immunity, though the etiology is still unclear. It is suspected that allergies are directly related to RAU. So we sought to explore the relationship between hypersensitivity and RAU., Materials and Methods: 40 RAU patients who were in ulceration period and 40 people who were in good health were selected from Jan 2016 to Feb 2017, matched in age and sex. The peripheral blood antigens of 40 RAU patients and 40 healthy people was tested, and serum specific IgE (sIgE) with 6 groups of antigens and total IgE (tIgE) analysis was performed to identify IgE-mediated allergic reaction possibly affecting RAU. We then investigated the food intolerance and IgG levels to discover the correlation between non-IgE mediated allergic reaction and RAU., Results: The positive cases and rate of sIgE in RAU group was higher than that of control, but the difference was not statistically significant ( P ＞0.05). Positive grade of animal fur scraps (EX1), house dust mixed (HX2) and the serum tIgE concentration of the RAU group were significantly higher than the control group ( P ＜0.05).The number of food intolerance in RAU group was significantly higher than that in control group ( P ＜0.05)., Conclusion: Our findings suggested certain correlation between RAU and anaphylaxis. Daily contact allergens and food intolerance may be one of the causes of RAU. Moreover, this provides reference value for clinical diagnosis and treatment., Competing Interests: The authors have no conflicts of interest relevant to this article., (© 2022 Association for Dental Sciences of the Republic of China. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V.)

Introduction: Natural cycle (NC) and hormone replacement treatment (HT) are frequently used endometrial preparation protocols prior to frozen-thawed embryo transfer in ovulatory women. It is not clear which protocol results in a higher live birth rate. It has been suggested that there is an increased risk in maternal and perinatal morbidity following HT protocol due to the lack of corpus luteum. The objective of this trial is to compare the clinical outcomes of NC and HT protocols in frozen embryo transfer., Methods and Analysis: COMPETE is an open-label, single-centre, randomised controlled trial targeting to recruit 888 women, with 444 women each in two arms (1:1 treatment ratio). Women undergoing in vitro fertilisation scheduled for a frozen embryo transfer and have a regular menstrual cycle are eligible. Exclusion criteria include ovulation disorders and intrauterine adhesions. The primary outcome is live birth resulting from the first frozen embryo transfer after randomisation. Secondary outcomes include biochemical pregnancy, clinical pregnancy, multiple pregnancy, ongoing pregnancy, miscarriage, endometrial thickness, cycle cancellation, gestational diabetes mellitus, hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, antepartum haemorrhage, preterm birth, birth weight, large for gestational age, congenital anomaly and perinatal mortality. The data analysis will be following the intention-to-treat principle., Ethics and Dissemination: This study has been approved by the Institutional Review Board of Northwest women's and children's hospital (2020008). Written informed consent will be obtained from each participant before randomisation. The results of the trial will be presented via publications., Trial Registration Number: ChiCTR2000040640., Competing Interests: Competing interests: BWM is supported by a NHMRC Investigatorgrant (GNT1176437). BWM reports consultancy for ObsEva. BMW has received research funding from Ferring and Merck. The other authors have none to declare., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Objective: To investigate the expression level and clinical significance of Wilms' tumor 1 (WT1) in bone marrow of patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS)., Methods: The clinical data of 147 MDS patients who accepted real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to detect the expression level of WT1 in bone marrow before treated in Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University from January 2017 to April 2021 were retrospectively analyzed. According to the expression level of WT1, the patients were divided into WT1 + group and WT1 - group, their clinical characteristics and prognosis were analyzed., Results: The positive rate of WT1 in 147 MDS patients was 82.3%. There were significant differences in bone marrow blast count, aberrant karyotypes, WHO 2016 classification, and IPSS-R stratification between WT1 + group and WT1 - group (all P<0.05). Furthermore, the higher the malignant degree of MDS subtype and the risk stratification of IPSS-R, the higher expression level of WT1. Compared with WT1 - group, there were no differences in overall survival (OS) time and the time of transformation to AML in WT1 + group (both P>0.05). In patients who did not accept transplantation, the median OS time of WT1 + patients was significantly shorter than that of WT1 - patients (P=0.049). Besides, regarding WT1 + group, patients who underwent transplantation had longer OS time and lower mortality than those who received hypomethylating agents (P=0.002, P=0.005)., Conclusion: WT1 expression level directly reflects the disease progression, and it is also associated with prognosis of MDS patients.

BACKGROUND: Teleoperation enables performing tasks in hazardous or inaccessible environments. The relationship between spatial ability and teleoperation performance has been extensively studied; however, relatively few studies have considered examples wherein the specific influence mechanism between the two is examined. This study aims to explore how individuals' spatial ability affects teleoperation performance. METHODS: Forty subjects completed teleoperated expedition and escape tasks in a virtual unfamiliar environment according to the assigned requirements. After each expedition task, subjects' mental model about the unfamiliar environment was evaluated. The escape task performance was measured in terms of path length, completion time, and the number of collisions. The impact of spatial ability on escape task performance wherein mental model as a mediator was examined. The Bootstrapping method was used to examine the hypothesis regarding the mediating role of mental model in the influence of spatial ability on teleoperation performance. RESULTS: Subjects with higher spatial ability exhibited significantly better mental models and had fewer collisions. In addition, subjects with better mental models had significantly shorter path lengths and spent marginally less time on escape. In general, the mental model appeared important for path length and completion time, but not collisions. CONCLUSIONS: The combined results of the two tasks preliminarily proved that spatial ability affected path length of the escape task through the mental model after the exploration task. The findings are expected to aid in astronaut selection and teleoperation training for space station missions. Pan D, Liu D, Tian Z, Zhang Y. Performance influence mechanism of individuals' spatial ability in teleoperation . Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2022; 93(10):717-724.

Characterizing interactions between microbial cells and their specific inhibitory drugs is essential for developing effective drugs and understanding the therapeutic mechanism. Functional metal nanoclusters can be effective inhibitory agents against microorganisms according to various characterization methods, but quantitative three-dimensional (3D) spatial structural analysis of intact cells is lacking. Herein, using coherent X-ray diffraction imaging, we performed in situ 3D visualization of unstained Staphylococcus aureus cells treated with peptide-mineralized Au-cluster probes at a resolution of ∼47 nm. Subsequent 3D mass-density mapping and quantitative structural analyses of S. aureus in different degrees of destruction showed that the bacterial cell wall was damaged and cytoplasmic constituents were released from cells, confirming the significant antibacterial effects of the Au-cluster probe. This study provides a promising nondestructive approach for quantitative imaging and paves the way for further research into microbe-inhibitor drug interactions.

Objective: The goal of this study was to look into age, genetics,sex, oral mucosa diseases, and systemic diseases as potential risk factors for the geographic tongue (GT) in a Chinese population., Study Design: This retrospective cross-sectional study used the demographic and medical data of 3400 patients between March 2021 and August 2021 from the Department of Oral Medicine at West China Hospital of Stomatology. Binary logistic regression was conducted to analyze the association of GT and age, fissured tongue (FT), burning mouth syndrome (BMS), oral lichen planus (OLP), gastrointestinal disorders, and hematologic disorders and to acquire the adjusted odds ratio (AOR)., Results: GT occurred in 3.6% of patients, with 15 out of 123 (12.2%) patients with GT having a family history. Binary logistic regression found age <30 years (AOR: 4.4; [95% CI: 2.8-6.9]), FT (28.8 [17.1-48.4]), BMS (0.3 [0.1-0.6]), OLP (0.2 [0.0-0.5]), and gastrointestinal disorders (4.3 [2.7-6.7]) were significantly associated with GT, and GT was unrelated to recurrent aphthous ulcer (RAU) or systemic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases., Conclusion: In the Chinese population, GT was more prevalent in patients with <30 years of age, FT, and gastrointestinal disorders, and it was less prevalent in BMS and OLP., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Head and neck squamous carcinoma (HNSC) is a frequent and deadly malignancy that is challenging to manage. The existing treatment options have considerable efficacy limitations. Hence, the identification of new therapeutic targets and the development of efficacious treatments are urgent needs. Cuproptosis, a non-apoptotic programmed cell death caused by excess copper, has only very recently been discovered. The present study investigated the prognostic importance of genes involved in cuproptosis through the mRNA expression data and related clinical information of HNSC patients downloaded from public databases. Our results revealed that many cuproptosis-related genes were differentially expressed between normal and HNSC tissues in the TCGA cohort. Moreover, 39 differentially expressed genes were associated with the prognosis of HNSC patients. Then, a 24-gene signature was identified in the TCGA cohort utilizing the LASSO Cox regression model. HNSC expression data used for validation were obtained from the GEO database. Consequently, we divided patients into high- and low-risk groups based on the 24-gene signature. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the high-risk group had a worse prognosis when compared to the low-risk group. Additionally, significant differences were found between the two groups in metabolic pathways, immune microenvironment, etc. In conclusion, we found a cuproptosis-related gene signature that can be used effectively to predict OS in HNSC patients. Thus, targeting cuproptosis might be an alternative and promising strategy for HNSC patients.

A superconducting nanowire single-photon imager (SNSPI) uses a time-multiplexing method to reduce the readout complexity. However, due to the serial connection, the nanowire should be uniform so that a common bias can set all segments of the nanowire to their maximum detection efficiency, which becomes more challenging as the scalability (i.e., the length of the nanowire) increases. Here, we have developed a 64-pixel SNSPI based on amorphous Mo 80 Si 20 film, which yielded a uniform nanowire and slow transmission line. Adjacent detectors were separated by delay lines, giving an imaging field of 270 µm × 240 µm. Benefiting from the high kinetic inductance of Mo 80 Si 20 films, the delay line gave a phase velocity as low as 4.6 µm/ps. The positions of all pixels can be read out with a negligible electrical cross talk of 0.02% by using cryogenic amplifiers. The timing jitter was 100.8 ps. Saturated internal quantum efficiency was observed at a wavelength of 1550 nm. These results demonstrate that amorphous film is a promising material for achieving SNSPIs with large scalability and high efficiency.

Skin cancer is one of the most dangerous diseases in the world. Correctly classifying skin lesions at an early stage could aid clinical decision-making by providing an accurate disease diagnosis, potentially increasing the chances of cure before cancer spreads. However, achieving automatic skin cancer classification is difficult because the majority of skin disease images used for training are imbalanced and in short supply; meanwhile, the model's cross-domain adaptability and robustness are also critical challenges. Recently, many deep learning-based methods have been widely used in skin cancer classification to solve the above issues and achieve satisfactory results. Nonetheless, reviews that include the abovementioned frontier problems in skin cancer classification are still scarce. Therefore, in this article, we provide a comprehensive overview of the latest deep learning-based algorithms for skin cancer classification. We begin with an overview of three types of dermatological images, followed by a list of publicly available datasets relating to skin cancers. After that, we review the successful applications of typical convolutional neural networks for skin cancer classification. As a highlight of this paper, we next summarize several frontier problems, including data imbalance, data limitation, domain adaptation, model robustness, and model efficiency, followed by corresponding solutions in the skin cancer classification task. Finally, by summarizing different deep learning-based methods to solve the frontier challenges in skin cancer classification, we can conclude that the general development direction of these approaches is structured, lightweight, and multimodal. Besides, for readers' convenience, we have summarized our findings in figures and tables. Considering the growing popularity of deep learning, there are still many issues to overcome as well as chances to pursue in the future., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Wu, Chen, Zeng, Pan, Wang and Zhao.)

Background: Malignant peritoneal mesothelioma (MPM) is a rare disease characterized by atypical symptoms, difficult diagnosis, variable course and poor prognosis, and it develops mainly in elderly individuals. The authors aimed to identify the clinical-pathological characteristics, prognosis, and prognostic factors in elderly MPM patients., Methods: From the National Cancer Institute Surveillance Epidemiology End Results (SEER) database, 1492 patients with MPM from 1975 to 2016 were selected and divided into the elderly group (≥ 65) and the adult group (< 65). We compared the clinical-pathological characteristics and treatment methods of the elderly group (N = 665) and the adult group (N = 827). At the same time, we analysed specific selected clinicopathological parameters and prognostic factors for elderly MPM patients., Results: Compared with the adult group, the elderly group had higher percentages of male patients (P = 0.017) and white patients (P = 0.043) and lower proportions of insured patients (P < 0.001) married patients (P < 0.001), patients with peritoneal tumours (P = 0.006) and patients who underwent surgery (P < 0.001) and chemotherapy (P < 0.001). There was a significant difference in the differentiation grade between the two groups (P = 0.003). Elderly patients had a shorter median survival time than adult patients (6 months vs. 19 months). Uninsured (hazard ratio (HR): 5.187, P = 0.005), sarcomatoid type (HR 3.913, P < 0.001), poorly differentiated (HR 3.900, P < 0.001), distant metastasis (HR 1.735, P = 0.001), no cancer-directed surgery (HR 1.733, P < 0.001), and no chemotherapy (HR 1.532, P < 0.001) were independently associated with poorer prognosis in elderly MPM patients., Conclusion: Compared with adult patients, elderly MPM patients had a higher male ratio, poor differentiation and relatively conservative treatment. The cancer-specific survival (CSS) rate of elderly MPM patients was significantly lower than that of adult patients. Insurance status, histology type, differentiation grade, stage, surgery status, and chemotherapy status were all independent prognostic factors for elderly MPM patients., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Campaign-style environmental implementation (CEI) is widely exerted in environmental protection, while its benefits and costs are controversial. We take advantage of the Central Environmental Protection Inspection (CEPI) System-a latest and distinguished form of CEI launched by China in 2016, as a quasi-natural experiment, to compare the benefits and costs of CEI based on water pollution effect estimates. Our results based on the annual panel data from 500 cities during 2009-2018 show that CEPI significantly reduced water pollution by an average of 20.7%. Further cost-benefit analysis based on the estimates of water pollution reduction shows that the potential health benefits of mortality and morbidity reduction resulting from CEPI are at least $12.26 billion, without bearing additional economic costs. We also explore why CEPI is cost-effective and find that CEPI reduces water pollution and becomes cost-effective mainly through deterring local officials, punishing polluting enterprises, and increasing public participation in environmental governance., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Lichenoid tissue reaction/interface dermatitis represents a class of mucocutaneous inflammatory diseases which share common histopathological manifestations. One patient presented to our clinic whose oral lesions could not categorized into a definitely clinical or pathological diagnosis, but could be ascribed to lichenoid tissue reaction/interface dermatitis with moderate-to-severe dysplasia. Photodynamic treatment was applied in this case and a satisfactory result was eventually achieved. Signs of recurrence were not revealed at the follow-up of the tenth month., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

As the current clinical treatment of acetaminophen (APAP)‑induced liver injury (AILI) has its limitations, new and effective treatment methods are required. Fingolimod (FTY720) is an immunosuppressive drug developed in recent years that has been shown to have a protective effect against ischemia/reperfusion liver injury. However, the role of FTY720 in AILI remains unclear. The aim of the present study was to determine whether FTY720 has a protective effect on AILI. AILI was induced using intraperitoneal injection of 300 mg/kg APAP in male C57BL/6J mice. Following APAP challenge, the mice were administered 5 mg/kg FTY720 for 30 min. Protein expression levels were measured using western blot analysis. Cell viability was examined using Cell Counting Kit‑8 assays. mRNA levels were measured using reverse transcription‑quantitative PCR. Inflammation levels were evaluated using immunohistochemistry. Cell death and reactive oxygen species levels were examined using immunofluorescence. Furthermore, laser scanning intravital microscopy was used to directly observe immune cell recruitment. APAP treatment increased the serum levels of alanine transaminase and aspartate transaminase at the 6‑ and 12‑h time‑points, suggesting liver tissue damage. However, FTY720 attenuated the liver injury induced by APAP by reducing the recruitment of immune cells and the release of pro‑inflammatory cytokines and chemokines. FTY720 activated JAK2/STAT3 signaling and regulated the expression of BAX, BCL‑2 and p65 to inhibit apoptosis and inflammation. In addition, compared with APAP treatment, the viability of primary hepatocytes treated with APAP and FTY720 was increased. Inhibition of JAK2/STAT3 signaling attenuated the protective, antioxidant effects of FTY720. In conclusion, FTY720 reduced liver injury by regulating the JAK2/STAT3 signaling pathway. This compound was capable of inhibiting oxidative stress to reduce hepatocyte death and the infiltration of neutrophils in the liver.

Introduction: Multiple structural brain changes in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) have been revealed on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). There is a fast-growing effort in applying artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze these data. Here, we review and evaluate the AI studies in brain MRI analysis with synthesis., Methods: A systematic review of the literature, spanning the years from 2009 to 2020, was completed using the PubMed database. AI studies using MRI imaging to investigate normal aging, mild cognitive impairment, and AD-dementia were retrieved for review. Bias assessment was completed using the PROBAST criteria., Results: 97 relevant studies were included in the review. The studies were typically focused on the classification of AD, MCI, and normal aging (71% of the reported studies) and the prediction of MCI conversion to AD (25%). The best performance was achieved by using the deep learning-based convolution neural network algorithms (weighted average accuracy 89%), in contrast to 76-86% using Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machines, and other AI methods., Discussion: The synthesized evidence is paramount to developing sophisticated AI approaches to reliably capture and quantify multiple subtle MRI changes in the whole brain that exemplify the complexity and heterogeneity of AD and brain aging., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Objective: To compare the clinical efficacy of unipedicular and bipedicular percutaneous kyphoplasty (PKP) for Kummell's disease., Methods: A retrospective study was performed to review 40 patients with stage I and II Kummell's disease who underwent PKP in our hospital from January 2015 to June 2018. Based on the transpedicular approach of PKP, those patients were randomly divided into unipedicular group (n = 19) and bipedicular group (n = 21). Operative time, bone cement injection volume and cement leakage rate were compared in the two groups. Pre- and post-operative visual analogue score (VAS), local kyphotic angle and average vertebral height were also evaluated., Results: All patients underwent surgery successfully. Compared with preoperative condition, VAS was significantly decreased at 1 day after operation and the last follow-up in both groups ( P < .05), and local kyphotic angle and average vertebral height were restored markedly ( P < .05). Operative time of both groups had no significant difference ( P > .05). Bone cement injection volume was larger in bipedicular group ( P < .05). At 1 day after operation and the last follow-up, the local kyphotic angle and average vertebral height in bipedicular group were restored better than those in unipedicular group ( P < .05). There were 4 cases of cement leakage in both groups, with leakage rates of 21.1% and 19.0%, respectively, and the difference was not significant ( P > .05)., Conclusion: Both unipedicular and bipedicular PKP are effective for treating patients with stage I and II Kummell's disease, while postoperative pain relief and imaging results in bipedicular group were better than those in unipedicular group., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article., (© The Author(s) 2022.)

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a highly contagious zoonotic disease caused by SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV). Since its outbreak in Guangdong Province of China in 2002, SARS has caused 8096 infections and 774 deaths by December 31st, 2003. Although there have been no more SARS cases reported in human populations since 2004, the recent emergence of a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) indicates the potential of the recurrence of SARS and other coronavirus disease among humans. Thus, developing a rapid response SARS vaccine to provide protection for human populations is still needed. Spike (S) protein of SARS-CoV can induce neutralizing antibodies, which is a pivotal immunogenic antigen for vaccine development. Here we constructed a recombinant chimeric vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) VSVΔG-SARS, in which the glycoprotein (G) gene is replaced with the SARS-CoV S gene. VSVΔG-SARS maintains the bullet-like shape of the native VSV, with the heterogeneous S protein incorporated into its surface instead of G protein. The results of safety trials revealed that VSVΔG-SARS is safe and effective in mice at a dose of 1 ​× ​10 6 TCID 50 . More importantly, only a single-dose immunization of 2 ​× ​10 7 TCID 50 can provide high-level neutralizing antibodies and robust T cell responses to non-human primate animal models. Thus, our data indicate that VSVΔG-SARS can be used as a rapid response vaccine candidate. Our study on the recombinant VSV-vectored SARS-CoV vaccines can accumulate experience and provide a foundation for the new coronavirus disease in the future., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background/purpose: Direct immunofluorescence and immune function and patients with oral lichen planusThe etiology of oral lichen planus (OLP) is unknown, our purpose was to evaluate the diagnostic value of direct immunofluorescence (DIF) and to investigate the immune functions in OLP., Materials and Methods: We enrolled 65 patients with suspected lesions of OLP and 47 controls. In all participants, clinical and serologic testing were conducted. The histopathologic and DIF tests were conducted in 65 patients. The severity of OLP was evaluated by reticular/hyperkeratotic, erosive/erythematous, ulcerative (REU) scoring system., Results: By hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining and DIF examination, 71.2% (42/59) were diagnosed as OLP, 28.8% (17/59) were diagnosed as non-OLP. DIF demonstrated 64.3% positive reactivity with 2 distinct distribution patterns and 8 staining patterns. Compared to the controls, serum IgA in OLP was higher (P < 0.01), and serum CD3+ cells, IgM, IgE, C3 and C4 were lower (P < 0.05). Pearson correlation analysis in OLP revealed correlations between REU score and IgM, IgA of DIF (r = 0.54, P = 0.026; and r = 0.56, P = 0.020, respectively), between serum IgG and IgG of DIF (r = 0.51, P = 0.038), between serum CD4+ and the ratio of CD4+/CD8+, IgM in DIF (r = -0.50, P = 0.048; and r = -0.54, P = 0.031, respectively), between serum CD8+ and IgM, IgA in DIF (r = 0.52, P = 0.038; and r = -0.50, P = 0.047, respectively)., Conclusion: A combination of H&E test and DIF is useful for the diagnosis of OLP. Compared to controls, immune changes happen to patients with OLP. There are significant associations between the OLP lesions and general cellular and humoral immune status, localized humoral immune response., Competing Interests: The authors have no conflicts of interest relevant to this article., (© 2021 Association for Dental Sciences of the Republic of China. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V.)