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Under the background of digitalization of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), to realize the quick identification and adulteration analysis of Pulsatilla Radix (PR), adhering to digital conviction, this study conducted UHPLC-QTOF-MS E analysis on PR and its adulterant-Pulsatilla Cernua (PC) from different batches and based on digital conversion, the shared ions were extracted from different batches of PR and PC as their "ions representation", respectively. Further, the data set of unique ions of PR relative to PC and PC relative to PR were screened out as the "digital identities" of PR and PC respectively. Further, above the "digital identities" of PR and PC were used as the benchmarks for matching and identifying to feedback give a matching credibility (MC). The results showed that based on the "digital identities" of PR and PC, the digital identification of two herbal samples can be realized efficiently and accurately at the individual level with the MC≥70.00 %, even if 5 % of PC in the mixed samples can still be identified efficiently and accurately. The study is of great practical significance for improving the identification efficiency of PR and PC, cracking down on adulterated and counterfeit drugs, and strengthening the quality control of PR. In addition, it has important reference significance for developing non-targeted digital identification of herbal medicines at the individual level based on UHPLC-QTOF-MS E and the "digital identity", which was beneficial to the construction of digital Chinese medicine and digital quality control., 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 B.V. All rights reserved.)

Context: Despite the recognition of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as a multifaceted neurodevelopmental disorder, its core causes are still ambiguous. The objective of this study was to explore if the traits of circulating immune cells contribute causally to susceptibility to ADHD., Methods: By employing a unified GWAS summary data covering 731 immune traits from the GWAS Catalog (accession numbers from GCST0001391 to GCST0002121), our analysis focused on the flow cytometry of lymphocyte clusters, encompassing 3,757 Sardinians, to identify genetically expected immune cells. Furthermore, we obtained summarized GWAS statistics from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium to evaluate the genetic forecasting of ADHD. The studies employed ADHD2019 (20,183 cases and 35,191 controls from the 2019 GWAS ADHD dataset) and ADHD2022 (38,691 cases and 275,986 controls from the 2022 GWAS ADHD dataset). Through the examination of genome-wide association signals, we identified shared genetic variances between circulating immune cells and ADHD, employing the comprehensive ADHD2022 dataset. We primarily utilized inverse variance weighted (IVW) and weighted median methods in our Mendelian randomization research and sensitivity assessments to evaluate diversity and pleiotropy., Results: After adjusting for false discovery rate (FDR), three distinct immunophenotypes were identified as associated with the risk of ADHD: CD33 in Im MDSC (OR=1.03, CI: 1.01~1.04, P =3.04×10 -5 , P FDR =0.015), CD8 br NKT %T cell (OR=1.08, 95%CI: 1.04~1.12, P =9.33×10 -5 , P FDR =0.023), and CD8 br NKT %lymphocyte (OR=1.08, 95%CI: 1.03~1.12, P =3.59×10 -4 , P FDR =0.066). Furthermore, ADHD showed no statistical effects on immunophenotypes. It's worth noting that 20 phenotypes exist where ADHD's appearance could diminish 85% of immune cells, including FSC-A in myeloid DC (β= -0.278, 95% CI: 0.616~0.931, P =0.008), CD3 in CD45RA- CD4+ (β= -0.233, 95% CI: 0.654~0.960, P =0.017), CD62L- monocyte AC (β=0.227, 95% CI: 0.038~1.518, P =0.019), CD33 in CD33 br HLA DR+ CD14dim (β= -0.331, 95% CI: 0.543~0.950, P =0.020), and CD25 in CD39+ resting Treg (β=0.226, 95% CI: 1.522, P =0.022), and FSC-A in monocytes (β= -0.255, 95% CI: 0.621~0.967, P =0.234), among others., Conclusion: Studies indicate that the immune system's response influences the emergence of ADHD. The findings greatly improve our understanding of the interplay between immune responses and ADHD risk, aiding in the development of treatment strategies from an immunological perspective., 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 © 2024 Jue, Dan-fei, Fang-fang, Ke-pin, Jia-ye, Hui-ting, Xiao-bo and Jian.)

Drug-induced thrombocytopenia (DIT) deserves both clinical and research attention for the serious clinical consequences and high prevalence of the condition. The current study aimed to perform a comprehensive pharmacovigilance analysis of DIT reported in the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) database, with a particular focus on drugs associated with thrombocytopenia events. A disproportionality analysis of DIT was conducted using reports submitted to FARES from January 2004 to December 2022. Both the information component (IC) and reporting odds ratio (ROR) algorithms were applied to identify an association between target drugs and DIT events. A total of 15,940,383 cases were gathered in FAERS, 168,657 of which were related to DIT events. The top 50 drugs ranked by number of cases and ranked by signal strength were documented. The top 5 drugs ranked by number of cases were lenalidomide (10,601 cases), niraparib (3726 cases), ruxolitinib (3624 cases), eltrombopag (3483 cases), and heparin (3478 cases). The top 5 drugs ranked by signal strength were danaparoid (ROR 37.61, 95%CI 30.46-46.45), eptifibatide (ROR 34.75, 95%CI 30.65-39.4), inotersen (ROR 34.00, 95%CI 29.47-39.23), niraparib (ROR 30.53, 95%CI 29.42-31.69), and heparin (ROR 28.84, 95%CI 27.76-29.97). The top 3 involved drug groups were protein kinase inhibitors, antimetabolites, and monoclonal antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates. The current comprehensive pharmacovigilance study identified more drugs associated with thrombocytopenia. Although the mechanisms of DIT have been elucidated for some drugs, others still require further investigation., (© 2023, The American College of Clinical Pharmacology.)

Exosomal-microRNAs (Exo-miRNAs) are key regulators of islet cell function, including insulin expression, processing, and secretion. Exo-miRNAs have a significant impact on the outcomes of islet transplantation as biomarkers for evaluating islet cell function and survival. Furthermore, they have been linked to vascular remodeling and immune regulation following islet transplantation. Mesenchymal stem cell-derived exosomes have been shown in preliminary studies to improve islet cell viability and function when injected or transplanted into mice. Overall, Exo-miRNAs have emerged as novel agents for improving islet transplantation success rates. The role of islet-derived Exo-miRNAs and mesenchymal stem cells-derived Exo-miRNAs as biomarkers and immunomodulators in islet regeneration, as well as their role in improving islet cell viability and function in islet transplantation, are discussed in this review., (Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.net.)

The etiology of myopia remains unclear. This study investigated whether retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) in the myopic retina encode visual information differently from the normal retina and to determine the role of Connexin (Cx) 36 in this process. Generalized linear models (GLMs), which can capture stimulus-dependent changes in real neurons with spike timing precision and reliability, were used to predict RGCs responses to focused and defocused images in the retinas of wild-type (normal) and Lens-Induced Myopia (LIM) mice. As the predominant subunit of gap junctions in the mouse retina and a plausible modulator in myopia development, Cx36 knockout (KO) mice were used as a control for an intact retinal circuit. The kinetics of excitatory postsynaptic currents (EPSCs) of a single αRGC could reflect projection of both focused and defocused images in the retinas of normal and LIM, but not in the Cx36 knockout mice. Poisson GLMs revealed that RGC encoding of visual stimuli in the LIM retina was similar to that of the normal retina. In the LIM retinas, the linear-Gaussian GLM model with offset was a better fit for predicting the spike count under a focused image than the defocused image. Akaike information criterion (AIC) indicated that nonparametric GLM (np-GLM) model predicted focused/defocused images better in both LIM and normal retinas. However, the spike counts in 33% of αRGCs in LIM retinas were better fitted by exponential GLM (exp-GLM) under defocus, compared to only 13% αRGCs in normal retinas. The differences in encoding performance between LIM and normal retinas indicated the possible amendment and plasticity of the retinal circuit in myopic retinas. The absence of a similar response between Cx36 KO mice and normal/LIM mice might suggest that Cx36, which is associated with myopia development, plays a role in encoding focused and defocused images., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare no competing financial interests., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Background: Islet cell transplantation is an emerging therapy in the treatment of diabetes mellitus. Differentiation of islet cells from mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) is a potential solution to the challenge of insufficient donor sources. This study investigated whether human umbilical cord-derived MSCs could effectively differentiate into insulin-producing cells (IPCs) and evaluated the therapeutic efficacy of IPCs in treating diabetes., Methods: IPCs were induced from MSCs by a two-step protocol. IPC expression products were evaluated by western blot and real-time PCR. IPC insulin secretion was evaluated by ELISA. The viability of IPCs was measured by FDA/PI and dithizone staining. The non-human primate tree shrew was used as a diabetes model. After a single STZ induction into a diabetes model, a single intraportal transplantation of IPCs, MSCs, or normal saline was performed (n = 6 per group). Blood glucose was monitored for 3 weeks, then the animals were euthanized and the distribution of IPCs in the liver was examined pathologically., Results: After about 3 weeks of in vitro induction, IPCs formed microspheres of 100-200 μm, with >95% viable cells that were dithizone stain positive. IPCs expressed islet-related genes and proteins and secreted high levels of insulin whether stimulated by low or high levels of glucose. After transplantation of IPCs into diabetic tree shrews, blood glucose levels decreased rapidly to near normal and were significantly lower than the MSC or saline groups for 3 weeks thereafter., Conclusion: We present the novel discovery that IPCs derived from human umbilical cord MSCs exert a therapeutic effect in a non-human primate model of diabetes. This study provides a preliminary experimental basis for the use of autologous MSC-derived IPCs in the treatment of human diabetes., (© 2023 International Center for Artificial Organ and Transplantation (ICAOT) and Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

In grass, the lemma is a unique floral organ structure that directly determines grain size and yield. Despite a great deal of research on grain enlargement caused by changes in glume cells, the importance of normal development of the glume for normal grain development has been poorly studied. In this study, we investigated a rice spikelet mutant, degenerated lemma ( del ), which developed florets with a slightly degenerated or rod-like lemma. More importantly, del also showed a significant reduction in grain length and width, seed setting rate, and 1000-grain weight, which led to a reduction in yield. The results indicate that the mutation of the DEL gene further affects rice grain yield. Map-based cloning shows a single-nucleotide substitution from T to A within Os01g0527600/DEL/OsRDR6 , causing an amino acid mutation of Leu-34 to His-34 in the del mutant. Compared with the wild type, the expression of DEL in del was significantly reduced, which might be caused by single base substitution. In addition, the expression level of tasiR-ARF in del was lower than that of the wild type. RT-qPCR results show that the expression of some floral organ identity genes was changed, which indicates that the DEL gene regulates lemma development by modulating the expression of these genes. The present results suggest that the normal expression of DEL is necessary for the formation of lemma and the normal development of grain morphology and therefore has an important effect on the yield., Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12298-023-01297-6., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestsThe authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (© Prof. H.S. Srivastava Foundation for Science and Society 2023, 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.)

Objectives: This study was designed to reveal structural abnormalities in singleton and twin pregnancies in the Chinese population., Methods: This retrospective study spanned 8 years and included 1228 singleton pregnancies (112,919 examinees) and 49 twin pregnancies (1865 examinees) with structural anomalies diagnosed by ultrasound. Detailed descriptions of anomalies, gestational weeks at diagnosis, and maternal age were recorded. The odds ratio was evaluated in twin pregnancies with detectable structural anomalies., Results: The annual average "ultrasound prevalence of fetal anomalies" among singleton and twin pregnancies were 1.09 and 3.06%, respectively. Mothers with twin anomalies were older (P < .001), and twin pregnancies were diagnosed with anomalies in earlier gestational weeks than singleton (P = .011). No differences were found in the types of anomalies between singleton and twin pregnancies. Central nervous system anomaly was the most common type in singleton and twin pregnancies. Twin pregnancies had higher rates of major anomalies than singleton (total OR 2.45), especially cardiovascular, central nervous, and gastrointestinal systems and ear/eye/face/neck disorders., Conclusions: Compared with singleton, twin pregnancies had higher odds of detectable structural anomalies. Twin pregnancies with structural anomalies were diagnosed at earlier gestational age and associated with older maternal age. Central nervous system anomaly was the most common type in singleton and twin pregnancies., (© 2022 American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine.)

Phylogenomic studies based on plastid genome have resolved recalcitrant relationships among various plants, yet the phylogeny of Dennstaedtiaceae at the level of family and genera remains unresolved due to conflicting plastid genes, limited molecular data and incomplete taxon sampling of previous studies. The present study generated 30 new plastid genomes of Dennstaedtiaceae (9 genera, 29 species), which were combined with 42 publicly available plastid genomes (including 24 families, 27 genera, 42 species) to explore the evolution of Dennstaedtiaceae. In order to minimize the impact of systematic errors on the resolution of phylogenetic inference, we applied six strategies to generate 30 datasets based on CDS, intergenic spacers, and whole plastome, and two tree inference methods (maximum-likelihood, ML; and multispecies coalescent, MSC) to comprehensively analyze the plastome-scale data. Besides, the phylogenetic signal among all loci was quantified for controversial nodes using ML framework, and different topologies hypotheses among all datasets were tested. The species trees based on different datasets and methods revealed obvious conflicts at the base of the polypody ferns. The topology of the "CDS-codon-align-rm3" (CDS with the removal of the third codon) matrix was selected as the primary reference or summary tree. The final phylogenetic tree supported Dennstaedtiaceae as the sister group to eupolypods, and Dennstaedtioideae was divided into four clades with full support. This robust reconstructed phylogenetic backbone establishes a framework for future studies on Dennstaedtiaceae classification, evolution and diversification. The present study suggests considering plastid phylogenomic conflict when using plastid genomes. From our results, reducing saturated genes or sites can effectively mitigate tree conflicts for distantly related taxa. Moreover, phylogenetic trees based on amino acid sequences can be used as a comparison to verify the confidence of nucleotide-based trees., 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 Wang, Li, Chen, Yang, Shu, Mu, Wang, Chen, Xiang and Yan.)

Dendrobium catenatum ( Dendrobium officinale ) is a valuable genuine herb. The source of this species is difficult to be identified by traditional methods including morphology, spectroscopy, and chromatography. We used the restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (RAD-seq) approach to perform the high-throughput sequencing of 24 D. catenatum provenances. In this study, 371.18 Gb clean data were obtained, and 655,057 high-quality SNPs were selected after their filtration. We used phylogenetic tree, genetic structure, and principal component analyses to examine the genetic diversities and genetic relationships of the 109 accessions. We found that D. catenatum could be divided into two groups, and each group was closely related to the distribution of the sampling sites. At the population level, the average nucleotide diversity (π) of the D. catenatum population mutation parameters was 0.1584 and the expected heterozygosity ( H E ) was 0.1575. The GXLPTP07 accessions showed the highest genetic diversity in terms of the private allele number, observed heterozygosity, and nucleotide diversity. The Mantel test showed a significant positive correlation between the genetic and geographic distances among the overall distribution. A genetic information database of D. catenatum was established, which confirmed that RAD-seq technology has the potential to be applied in the identification of medicinal Dendrobium of different origins.

Objectives: Our study was aimed to investigate the clinical characteristics of the patients with COVID-19 pneumonia and research new diagnostic methods for the disease., Methods: In this retrospective study, medical records of 46 novel coronavirus-infected pneumonia (NCIP) patients and 30 healthy individuals in the two multiple hospitals from January 2020 to March 2020 were studied. Clinical characteristics, chest computed tomographic (CT) scans, medicine treatment and laboratory information were collected and retrospectively analyzed. Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR) and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) were evaluated., Results: The main symptoms of the patients with NCIP were fever (100%), cough (82.6%), anorexia (37%), expectoration (34.8%) and fatigue (21.7%), dyspnea (15.2%). Ground glass opacity (GGO) with patch shadow was the main observation of the CT imaging (43.4%), followed by GGO (21.7%), patch shadow (19.5%), GGO with consolidation (8.7%) and GGO with reticular pattern (2.1%). The median white blood cell (WBC) count, lymphocyte count, platelet, and lymphocyte-monocyte ratio (LMR) in NCIP group were all significantly lower than in control group (p<0.001, for all comparisons), while the median neutrophil-monocyte ratio (NLR) and platelets-monocyte ratio (PLR) were both significantly higher (p<0.001, for both comparisons). Median WBC count, lymphocyte count, and platelet count on discharge were significantly higher than on admission (p<0.05). Median PLR was significantly lower two weeks after discharge (p<0.001), while NLR remained the same. The area under the curve (AUC) value of WBC, lymphocyte and platelet counts, NLR, LMR and PLR were 0.766, 0.931, 0.655, 0.780, 0.847 and 0.845, respectively. Early stages of the disease were associated with quick changes in WBC, lymphocyte, and platelet levels. However, NLR did not recover even two weeks after the discharge., Conclusion: Changes in WBC, lymphocyte, and platelet counts, as well as NLR, LMR and PLR are strongly associated with COVID-19 pneumonia. Monitoring blood markers may assist in evaluating the progression of the disease., (Copyright: © Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences.)

Objectives: To investigate the application of tirofiban in patients with acute myocardial infarction complicated with diabetes and undergoing emergency interventional therapy., Methods: Two hundred patients with acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) complicated with diabetes who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and found to have high thrombus burden in coronary artery admitted to our hospital from September 2018 to September 2020 were selected as subjects, and were divided into two groups according to the randomization method: the intravenous tirofiban bolus group and the intracoronary tirofiban bolus group, with 100 cases in each group. The levels of LVEF, LVESD and LVEDD were detected immediately after admission and 15 days after therapy, and the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was utilized to detect the levels of CK-MB, MMP-9 and hs-CRP. Furthermore, the levels of BNP, TNI, CR and UREA of the patients were analyzed, and the levels of ESR and FIB were detected with an automatic blood rheology analyzer to analyze the TIMI classification and the incidence of MACE in the two groups., Results: Significant differences were seen between the two groups in the levels of various indicators after therapy. Fifteen days after therapy, the levels of LVEF and LVEDD were higher and the level of LVESD was lower in the intracoronary tirofiban bolus group than in the intravenous tirofiban bolus group (p<0.05); 3d after therapy, the levels of CK-MB, MMP-9 and BNP in the intracoronary tirofiban bolus group were lower than those in the intravenous tirofiban bolus group (p<0.05); 3d after therapy, the levels of TNI (p<0.05), CR and UREA in the intracoronary tirofiban bolus group were lower than those in the intravenous tirofiban bolus group, with no statistical difference (p>0.05); Similarly, 3d after therapy, the levels of TNI, Cr and Urea, as well as ESR, FIB and hs-CRP were lower in the intracoronary tirofiban bolus group than in the intravenous tirofiban bolus group (p<0.05). Compared with the intravenous tirofiban bolus group, the intracoronary tirofiban bolus group had a lower number of patients with Grade-0 and Grade-1, but a higher number of patients with Grade-2 and Grade-3 (p<0.05); Moreover, the incidence of MACE in the intracoronary tirofiban bolus group was lower than that in the intravenous tirofiban bolus group (p<0.05)., Conclusion: In patients with STEMI complicated with diabetes who underwent PCI and found to have high thrombus burden in coronary artery, intracoronary bolus of tirofiban boasts superior therapeutic efficacy over intravenous bolus of tirofiban in significantly improving cardiac function, reducing myocardial cell damage, and improving renal function and myocardial inflammation of patients., Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest: None., (Copyright: © Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences.)

Background: To determine the hypnotic and analgesic effects of brimonidine, and evaluate its efficacy and safety for general anesthesia. Potentiation of pentobarbital sleeping time following brimonidine administration was observed in mice, as was the analgesic activity of brimonidine., Methods: The median effective dose (ED 50 ) and lethal dose (LD 50 ) of intraperitoneally injected brimonidine were determined in hypnotized mice. In addition, the LD 50 of intravenously injected brimonidine, and ED 50 of intravenously, intramuscularly, and intrarectally injected brimonidine in hypnotized rabbits were determined. Finally, the synergistic anesthetic effect of brimonidine and chloral hydrate was evaluated in rabbits., Results: Intraperitoneal injection of 10 mg/kg brimonidine enhanced the hypnotic effect of a threshold dose of pentobarbital. Intraperitoneally injected brimonidine produced dose-related analgesic effects in mice. The ED 50 of intraperitoneally administered brimonidine in hypnotized mice was 75.7 mg/kg and the LD 50 was 379 mg/kg. ED 50 values of intravenous, intramuscular, and intrarectal brimonidine for hypnosis in rabbits were 5.2 mg/kg, 8.8 mg/kg, and 8.7 mg/kg, respectively; the LD 50 of intravenous brimonidine was 146 mg/kg. Combined intravenous administration of 0.6 mg/kg brimonidine and 0.03 g/kg chloral hydrate had a synergistic anesthetic effect., Conclusions: Brimonidine elicited hypnotic and analgesic effects after systemic administration and exhibited safety. Moreover, brimonidine enhanced the effects of other types of narcotics when combined., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

The complete chloroplast genome sequence of Thrixspermum amplexicaule was assembled and analyzed in this work. The total chloroplast genome size of T. amplexicaule was 148,124 bp in length, containing a large single-copy (LSC) region of 86,079 bp, a small single-copy (SSC) region of 10,799 bp, and a pair of inverted repeat (IR) regions of 25,623 bp. The GC content of T. amplexicaule was 36.4%. It encoded a total of 120 unique genes, including 75 protein-coding genes, 37 tRNA genes, and eight rRNA genes. The results of phylogenetic analysis strongly supported that all four samples of Thrixspermum are monophyletic and T. amplexicaule was closely related to T. centipeda ., Competing Interests: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)., (© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.)

Background . Whether concepts and principles of Occupational Therapy (OT) can successfully be applied to non-Western and cross-cultural settings is being intensively discussed. Aims/Objectives . We explored the changing perspectives of local occupational therapists (OTs) eight years after the implementation of an OT service in a Himalayan cross-cultural setting in terms of (1) treatment applied, (2) professional identity, and (3) cross-cultural interactions. Material and Methods . A qualitative study design was chosen, and semistructured interviews were conducted in all employed practitioners (a) during implementation and (b) eight years later ( n = 7). Questions were carefully formulated in order to narrow down the intended issues but respecting crosscultural differences. The framework method was implemented for data analysis. Findings . Long-term empowering local OTs resulted in the successful development of a sustainable OT department in a unique Himalayan cross-cultural setting. Practitioners became aware of their therapeutic potentials, a clear sense of professional identity was developed, and it was recognised that sensitive cross-cultural practice is only achieved by an ongoing and intentional cultural learning process. Conclusions and Significance . Our findings suggest that OT can be applied to non-Western cross-cultural settings., Competing Interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Gaby Scheidegger et al.)

To investigate the characteristics and health risks of heavy metals in household dust in urban and rural areas during heating and non-heating period in 2016-2017, 762 dust samples and 381 questionnaires from 381 households were collected from Dalian, Taiyuan, Lanzhou, Shanghai, Wuhan, and Chengdu in China. The results indicated that Dalian was the most polluted city, while Shanghai and Chengdu were the least polluted cities during the study period. Longer ventilation times led to higher concentrations of heavy metals, and the weighting of heating duration exceeded that of heating type. Soil was the dominant contributor to household dust for Hg, Ni, Cu, Zn, and As, whereas Pb primarily originated from traffic. The non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks associated with heavy metals in household dust were acceptable, with ingestion being the primary exposure route. The risk of adverse health effects caused by heavy metal intake via household dust in urban areas was higher than that in rural areas, and increased during household heating period. Ingestion was the most significant route leading to adverse health effects due to heavy metals in household dust. The exception was the carcinogenic risk associated with Ni, which is known to enter the human body mainly via inhalation., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declared that they have no conflicts of interest to this work. We declare that we do not have any commercial or associative interest that represents a conflict of interest in connection with the work submitted., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

While the capacity to regenerate tissues or limbs is limited in mammals, including humans, axolotls are able to regrow entire limbs and major organs after incurring a wound. The wound blastema has been extensively studied in limb regeneration. However, due to the inadequate characterization of ECM and cell subpopulations involved in the regeneration process, the discovery of the key drivers for human limb regeneration remains unknown. In this study, we applied large-scale single-cell RNA sequencing to classify cells throughout the adult axolotl limb regeneration process, uncovering a novel regeneration-specific mitochondria-related cluster supporting regeneration through energy providing and the ECM secretion (COL2+) cluster contributing to regeneration through cell-cell interactions signals. We also discovered the dedifferentiation and re-differentiation of the COL1+/COL2+ cellular subpopulation and exposed a COL2-mitochondria subcluster supporting the musculoskeletal system regeneration. On the basis of these findings, we reconstructed the dynamic single-cell transcriptome of adult axolotl limb regenerative process, and identified the novel regenerative mitochondria-related musculoskeletal populations, which yielded deeper insights into the crucial interactions between cell clusters within the regenerative microenvironment.

Rationale: Sirenomelia is a rare congenital malformation that threatens fetal survivals. The cases in which twin with sirenomelia and chromosomal abnormality have been seldomly reported. We reported a dichorionic twin case in which one twin had sirenomelia, the other twin had a normal phenotype, and they had different chromosomal abnormalities., Patient Concerns: The abnormal twin was found at 22 weeks by ultrasound. The sirenomelia fetus was complicated with a thoracic stenosis, enlarged rectum without anal opening, the absence of bilateral kidneys, a single umbilical artery, a single lower limb, the abnormal curvature of spine, double outlet of right ventricle, which were the indicatives of the chromosome detection., Diagnosis: The copy number variation of the sirenomelia fetus was detected as a deletion of 4.8Mb in 11p11.12-11q11. The co-twin was found with del(Y)(q11.223q11.23), which was as the same as his father's. The mother had normal chromosome. The parents had normal phenotypes. It was firstly reported a microdeletion with sirenomelia fetus., Interventions: There was no specific treatments for the twins., Outcomes: Intrauterine death of the sirenomelia fetus was found at 27 weeks and postnatal death after inevitable abortion happened to the co-twin., Lessons: Prenatal ultrasound was responsible for recognizing sirenomelia, and the detailed ultrasound scanning and chromosome detection should be done for the co-twin. The etiology of sirenomelia remains unclear, and genetic detection is also necessary for its pathogenesis research., Competing Interests: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2021 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)

Background: Indigo naturalis is a blue dye in ancient, as well as an extensive used traditional Chinese medicine. It has a wide spectrum of pharmacological properties and can be used to treat numerous ailments such as leukemia, psoriasis, and ulcerative colitis. This article aims to expand our understanding of indigo naturalis in terms of its chemical constituents, pharmacological action and clinical applications., Methods: We searched PubMed, web of science, CNKI, Google academic, Elsevier and other databases with the key words of "Indigo naturalis", and reviewed and sorted out the modern research of indigo naturalis based on our research results., Results: We outlined the traditional manufacturing process, chemical composition and quality control of indigo naturalis, systematically reviewed traditional applictions, pharmacological activities and mechanism of indigo naturalis, and summarized its clinical trials about treatment of psoriasis, leukemia and ulcerative colitis., Conclusions: Indigo naturalis has a variety of pharmacological activities, such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antibacterial, antiviral, immunomodulatory and so on. It has very good clinical effect on psoriasis, leukemia and ulcerative colitis. However, it should be noted that long-term use of indigo naturalis may produce some reversible adverse reactions. In summarize, indigo naturalis is an extremely important drug with great value and potential.

To prepare a new dosage form that can improve the drug loading of the film--ginkgolide B nanosuspension lyophilized powder orodispersible film(GB-NS-LP-ODF) and to evaluate its quality. Firstly, ginkgolide B nanosuspension(GB-NS) was prepared by media milling method, and then ginkgolide B nanosuspension lyophilized powder(GB-NS-LP) was prepared with freeze-drying method. The mannitol was used as lyoprotectant and its dosage was also investigated. GB-NS-LP-ODF was prepared by solvent casting method and its formulation was screened by single factor test method and optimized by orthogonal test. The appearance, mechanical properties, content uniformity and in vitro dissolution of the optimized GB-NS-LP-ODF were investigated. The particle size of prepared GB-NS was about 201 nm, and the optimal dosage of mannitol was 8%. According to the optimal formula, the GB-NS-LP-ODF was prepared with GB-NS-LP 35.6%, PVA 0588 49.4%, PEG 400 10.7% and CMS-Na 4.3%, and completely disintegrated in about 30 s, and the particle size of reconstituted GB nanoparticles from ODF was about 210 nm. The film with smooth appearance and good mechanical properties was stable within 30 days and the content uniformity(A+2.2 S&lt;15) conformed to the regulations. Scanning electron microscope(SEM) showed that GB-NS-LP-ODFs were evenly distributed and the particle size was about 200 nm. X-rays diffraction(XRD) showed that its crystallinity was significantly lower than that of GB raw drug and GB-ODF. The results of in vitro release test showed that the drug film was completely dissoluted within 10 minutes. These results indicated that nanosuspension lyophilized powder was prepared by freeze drying of nanosuspensions, and then loaded into the orodispersible film to effectively increase the drug loading of the ODF and have broad application prospects.

This study was designed to determine the metabolites of Zhali Nusi Prescription(ZLNSP) in rats. The ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-LTQ Orbitrap mass spectrometric(UHPLC-LTQ-Orbitrap-MS) and mass defect filter techniques were applied to analyze the metabolites of ZLNSP in rat plasma, bile, urine and feces. The biological samples were analyzed by ACQUITY UPLC BEH T&#95;3 column(2.1 mm×100 mm,1.7 μm), with 0.1% formic acid water(A)-acetonitrile(B) as mobile phase, and the biological samples were analyzed in negative ion mode by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry(ESI-MS). An analytical method for biological samples of rats was established, and 8 prototype components and 36 metabolites were identified. The results showed that the metabolic pathways of the main components of ZLNSP in rats included methylation, glucuronidation, sulfation and so on. It provi-ded information for the therapeutic effect of ZLNSP in vivo.

Treatment of glioblastoma using radiotherapy and chemotherapy has various outcomes, key among them being cellular senescence. However, the molecular mechanisms of this process remain unclear. In the present study, we tested the ability of D-galactose (D-gal), a reducing sugar, to induce senescence in glioblastoma cells. Following pretreatment with D-gal, glioblastoma cell lines (C6 and U87MG) showed typical characteristics of senescence. These included the reduced cell proliferation, hypertrophic morphology, increased senescence-associated β-galactosidase activity, downregulation of Lamin B1, and upregulation of several senescence-associated genes such as p16, p53, and NF-κB. Furthermore, our results showed that D-gal was more suitable than etoposide (a DNA-damage drug) in inducing senescence of glioblastoma cells. Mechanistically, D-gal inactivated the YAP-CDK6 signaling pathway, while overexpression of YAP or CDK6 could restore D-gal-induced senescence of C6 cells. Finally, metformin, an anti-aging agent, activated the YAP-CDK6 pathway and suppressed D-gal-induced senescence of C6 cells. Taken together, these findings established a new model for analyzing senescence in glioblastoma cells, which occurred through the YAP-CDK6 pathway. This is expected to provide a basis for development of novel therapies for the treatment of glioblastoma.

This article reviews the research progress of the chemical constituents and biosynthesis mechanisms of Polygonum cuspidatum. The chemistry components isolated from P. cuspidatum are mainly anthraquinones, naphthoquinones, stilbenes, flavonoids, and other compounds. The synthase genes involved in the biosynthesis process were summarized. The biosynthesis mechanism of stilbenes and anthraquinones was discussed. This article hopefully to provide a reference for further research, development and utilization of P. cuspidatum.

Geodorum eulophioides Schltr., is a critically Endangered orchid (IUCN). In this study, we report the first complete chloroplast (cp) genome of G. eulophioides to provide the underlying information for genetic breeding and conservation studies of this species. The cp genome sequence of G. eulophioides is 149,466 bp in length, which contains one large single-copy region (LSC, 85,436 bp), one small single-copy region (SSC, 14,086 bp), and two inverted repeat regions (IRs, 24,972 bp). The cp genome encoded 177 genes, of which 106 were unique genes (78 protein-coding genes, 24 tRNAs, and 4 rRNAs). Phylogenetic analysis showed that G. eulophioides is closely related to the genera Eulophia ., Competing Interests: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)., (© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.)

Background: Modifying the implant surface via enhancing the wettability (hydrophilicity) improves osseointegration, reducing the healing period. In this study, the authors aimed to evaluate the stability and survival rates of implants with a hydrophilic surface compared with those with a sandblasted, acid-etched surface., Types of Studies Reviewed: The included studies (randomized controlled trials) were identified through searches of PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Cochrane Library databases without date of publication restrictions. Quality assessment was performed using the Cochrane Collaboration tool. For primary outcome, confidence intervals were set at 95%; weighted means across the studies were calculated using a fixed-effects model or risk ratios and their 95% confidence intervals for secondary outcome., Results: The authors included 5 randomized controlled trials (246 dental implants) in the systematic review, which compared a hydrophilic with conventional sandblasted, acid-etched implant surface. The implant stability (primary outcome) was measured at baseline and 3, 6, and 8 weeks, and implant survival rates were measured as a secondary outcome. Overall, compared with the control groups, no clinically significant differences in implant stability or survival rates were identified for the hydrophilic surface groups., Conclusions and Practical Implications: The results did not show any clinically significant effect of a hydrophilic surface on improving implant stability or survival rates. However, these findings must be analyzed carefully owing to the limitations of this review, such as the small samples size and some differences among the included studies., (Copyright © 2020 American Dental Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Cold stress is one of the most common unfavorable environmental factors affecting the growth, development, and survival of plants. The DEAD-box RNA helicases play important roles in all types of processes of RNA metabolism. However, the function of DEAD-box RNA helicase under cold stress is poorly explored in plants, especially in rice. This study reported the identification of a novel rice thermo-sensitive chlorophyll-deficient mutant, tcd33, which displayed an albino phenotype before the four-leaf stage, then withered and eventually died at 20 °C, while wild-type plants exhibited normal green coloration at 32 °C. The tcd33 seedlings also exhibited less chlorophyll contents and severe defects of chloroplast structure under 20 °C condition. Map-based cloning and complementation experiments suggested that TCD33 encodes a chloroplast-located DEAD-box RNA helicase protein. The transcript expression level of TCD33 indicated that the genes related to chlorophyll (Chl) biosynthesis, photosynthesis, and chloroplast development in tcd33 mutants were down-regulated at 20 °C, while the down-regulated genes were nearly recovered to or slightly higher than the WT level at 32 °C. Together, our results suggest that the cold-inducible TCD33 is essential for early chloroplast development and is important for cold-responsive gene regulation and cold tolerance in rice., 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 © 2020. Published by Elsevier GmbH.)

Cymbidium changningense is an ornamental orchid and endemic specie in China. Here, we report the complete chloroplast (cp) genome sequence and the cp genome features of C. changningense. The cp genome was 155,388 bp in length with a typical quadripartite structure, which was comprised of one large single copy (LSC, 84,522 bp) region and one small single copy (SSC, 20,622 bp) region separated by two inverted repeat (IR, 25,122 bp) regions. The cp genome encoded 132 genes, of which 108 were unique genes (80 protein-coding genes, 24 tRNAs, and four rRNAs). The phylogenetic analysis showed that C. changningense was sister with C. erythraeum., Competing Interests: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors., (© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.)

Dendrobium longicornu Lindl is an epiphytic orchid with significant ornamental values. Here, we report the first complete chloroplast genome of D. longicornu . The complete chloroplast (cp) genome sequence of D. longicornu is 160,024 bp in length and consisted of two inverted repeats (IRs, 25,403 bp), which were separated by a large single copy region (LSC, 88,075 bp) and a small single copy region (SSC, 21,143 bp). The cp genome encoded 142 genes, of which 110 were unique genes (80 protein-coding genes, 26 tRNAs and 4 rRNAs). Phylogenetic analysis showed that D. longicornu clustered together with D. ellipsophy ., Competing Interests: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors., (© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.)

Pholidota imbricata belongs to tribe Coelogninae in Orchidaceae distributed in Sichuan, Xizang, and Yunnan. Here, we report the first complete chloroplast (cp) genome and the cp genome features of P. imbricata. The complete cp genome sequence of P. imbricata is 159,292 bp in length and presented a typical quadripartite structure including one large single-copy region (LSC, 87,515 bp), one small single-copy region (SSC, 20,999 bp), and two inverted repeat regions (IRs, 25,389 bp each). The cp genome encoded 141 genes, of which 108 were unique genes (80 protein-coding genes, 24 tRNAs, and 4 rRNAs). The phylogenetic relationships show that P. imbricata is sister to the species of the genus Pleione in tribe Coelogninae., Competing Interests: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors., (© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.)

Dendrobium thyrsiflorum H. G. Reichenbach ex André is an endemic herb with ornamental and medicinal orchid value distributed in Southeast of Yunnan of China. Here, we report and characterize the complete chloroplast (cp) genome sequence of D. thyrsiflorum in order to provide genomic resources helpful for its identification, conservation and utilization. The complete cp genome of D. thyrsiflorum is 160,123 bp, including one large single-copy region (LSC, 88,001), one small single-copy region (SSC, 21,142), and two inverted repeat regions (IRs, 25,490). The cp genome contains 143 genes, consisting of 110 unique genes (80 protein-coding genes, 26 tRNAs, and 4 rRNAS). The phlyogenetic relationships show that D. thyrsiflorum is closely related to other species of Dendrobium ., Competing Interests: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors., (© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.)

Cymbidium mastersii Griff. & Lindl. is an endangered orchid. In this study, we report the complete chloroplast (cp) genome sequence and the cp genome features of C. mastersii. The cp genome sequence of C. mastersii was 155,362 bp in length. It included one large single-copy region (LSC, 84,465 bp), one small single-copy region (SSC, 20,647 bp), and two inverted repeat regions (IRs, 25,125 bp). The cp genome encoded 130 genes, of which 107 were unique genes (80 protein-coding genes, 23 tRNAs, and 4 rRNAs). The maximum-likelihood phylogenetic analysis showed that C. mastersii was a sister of C. erythraeum and C. nanulum ., Competing Interests: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors., (© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.)

Vanilla shenzhenica Z.J.Liu & S.C.Chen is a new species of orchid found in Shenzhen, South China for the first time. Here we report the complete chloroplast (cp) genome sequence and the features of V. shenzhenica . Its cp genome sequence was 151,537 bp, including one large single-copy region (LSC, 87,487 bp), one small single-copy region (SSC, 19,172 bp), and two inverted repeat regions (IRs, 22,439 bp). It encoded 123 genes, of which 104 were unique genes (69 protein-coding genes, 31 tRNAs and 4 rRNAs). The phylogenetic relationships show that V. shenzhenica is sister with V. aphylla ., Competing Interests: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors., (© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.)

Cymbidium erythraeum Lindl. is an endangered species of Orchidaceae and distributed in China and Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Vietnam. Here, we report the complete chloroplast (cp) genome sequence and the cp genome features of C. erythraeum. The complete chloroplast (cp) genome sequence of C. erythraeum is 156,327 bp in length and including one large single-copy region (LSC, 85,404 bp), one small single-copy region (SSC, 20,021 bp), and two inverted repeat regions (IRs, 25,426 bp). The cp genome encoded 136 genes, of which 107 were unique genes (80 protein-coding genes, 23 tRNAs, and four rRNAs). The phylogenetic relationships show that C. erythraeum is closely related to other species in the genus Cymbidium and is sister with C. tracyanum ., Competing Interests: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors., (© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.)

Cymbidium nanulum Y.S.Wu & S.C.Chen is an IUCN Red listed Endangered species and distributes in South-Central China and Hainan. Here, we report the complete chloroplast (cp) genome sequence and the cp genome features of C. nanulum. The complete chloroplast (cp) genome sequence of C. nanulum was 149,776 bp in length. It presented a typical quadripartite structure including one large single-copy region (LSC, 85,392 bp), one small single-copy region (SSC, 14,210 bp), and two inverted repeat regions (IRs, 25,087 bp). The cp genome encoded 133 genes, of which 104 were unique genes (77 protein-coding genes, 23 tRNAs, and 4 rRNAs). The maximum-likelihood phylogenetic analysis showed that C. nanulum was closely related to other species of genus Cymbidium., Competing Interests: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors., (© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.)

This paper studies the compact coding approach to approximate nearest neighbor search. We introduce a composite quantization framework. It uses the composition of several ($M$M) elements, each of which is selected from a different dictionary, to accurately approximate a $D$D-dimensional vector, thus yielding accurate search, and represents the data vector by a short code composed of the indices of the selected elements in the corresponding dictionaries. Our key contribution lies in introducing a near-orthogonality constraint, which makes the search efficiency is guaranteed as the cost of the distance computation is reduced to $O(M)$O(M) from $O(D)$O(D) through a distance table lookup scheme. The resulting approach is called near-orthogonal composite quantization. We theoretically justify the equivalence between near-orthogonal composite quantization and minimizing an upper bound of a function formed by jointly considering the quantization error and the search cost according to a generalized triangle inequality. We empirically show the efficacy of the proposed approach over several benchmark datasets. In addition, we demonstrate the superior performances in other three applications: combination with inverted multi-index, inner-product similarity search, and query compression for mobile search.

Background: Helicobacter pylori is a major cause of gastric diseases including gastric cancer. This study was aimed to explore whether hydrotalcite can inhibit H. pylori infection of gastric epithelial cells., Methods: the gastric epithelial cell line GES-1 and the gastric cancer cell line BGC823 were infected with H. pylori at multiplicities of infections (MOIs) of 50:1 and 100:1. Hydrotalcite was added to cell cultures. Cell apoptosis and cell cycle analysis were performed to measure the situation of cell growth. The main changes of cell ultrastructure were observed by transmission electron microscopy. H. pylori cell adhesion was observed by scanning electron microscopy., Results: hydrotalcite could significantly inhibit cell apoptosis of GES-1 and cell proliferation of BGC823 induced by H. pylori infection at an MOI of 50:1. Hydrotalcite treatment protected gastric cells from H. pylori infection, and H. pylori adhesion to gastric cells was reduced. However, hydrotalcite could not reverse damage induced by H. pylori infection at an MOI of 100:1., Conclusion: hydrotalcite can protect gastric cells from H. pylori infection when cell damage is not serious. It can weaken the damage of cells induced by H. pylori and decrease H. pylori adhesion to gastric cells.

Objective: To detect the expression level of ICOS on Th9 cells in mice infected with Schistosoma japonicum , and investigate the relation between ICOS signaling and Th9 cell polarization., Methods: Twenty-five mice with S. japonicum infection were used as models. IL-9 + cells in CD4 + T cells and ICOS + cells in Th9 cells of the mice were detected by flow cytometry 0, 4, 7, 9 weeks and 12 weeks after the infection., Results: Compared with that 0 week after the infection, the proportion of Th9 cells in CD4 + T cells of the mice significantly increased 4, 7, 9, 12 weeks after the infection (all P < 0.05), and the proportion of ICOS + cells in Th9 cells also markedly improved ( P < 0.05)., Conclusions: In S. japonicum infection, the ICOS signaling may have a regulatory effect on Th9 cell polarization.

Background: We investigated whether the long-term consumption of a symbiotic formulation with Lactobacillus fermentum (probiotic) and β-glucan from cauliflower mushroom (prebiotic) would delay the progression of post-menopausal symptoms in ovariectomized (OVX) rats and explored their mechanisms of action, including changes in gut microbiota., Methods: OVX rats were fed with high-fat diets containing 1% dextrin (control), 1% lyophilized cauliflower mushroom extract (CFM), 0.1% L . fermentum JS (LFE), 1% CFM plus 0.1% LFE (CFLF), or 30 μg 17β-estradiol/kg body weight (positive-control) for 8 weeks., Results: CFM contained 95.8% β-glucans. OVX increased the ratio of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes in the large intestines. Only CFLF lowered tail skin temperature without increasing serum 17β-estradiol and uterine index. Visceral fat mass was lower in CFLF and positive-control groups by increasing daily energy expenditure and fat oxidation. Dyslipidemia induced by OVX was improved by CFM and CFLF as much as in the positive-control group. Homeostasis model assessment estimate of insulin resistance was lower in CFLF than in the positive-control. Hepatic insulin signaling (pAkt➔GSK-3β) was potentiated in the ascending order of the control, LFE, CFM, CFLF, and positive-control. AMPK phosphorylation showed similar patterns of hepatic insulin signaling but LFE increased it more than CFM. The changes in gut microbiota were prevented by CFLF in OVX rats, and the ratio of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes in the CFLF was similar to the positive-control group., Conclusion: OVX changed gut microbiota and was associated with menopausal symptoms; however, the synbiotics, CFM and LFE, prevented menopausal symptoms and improved the gut microbiota in estrogen-deficient rats.

Background: Caregiver health is a crucial public health concern due to the increasing number of elderly people with disabilities. Elderly caregivers are more likely to have poorer health and be a care recipient than younger caregivers. The Taiwan government offers home-based long-term care (LTC) services to provide formal care and decrease the burden of caregivers. This study examined the effects of home-based LTC services on caregiver health according to caregiver age., Methods: This cross-sectional study included a simple random sample of care recipients and their caregivers. The care recipients had used LTC services under the Ten-Year Long-Term Care Project (TLTCP) in Taiwan. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaires from September 2012 to January 2013. The following variables were assessed for caregivers: health, sex, marital status, education level, relationship with care recipient, quality of relationship with care recipient, job, household monthly income, family income spent on caring for the care recipient (%) and caregiving period. Furthermore, the following factors were assessed for care recipients: age, sex, marital status, education level, living alone, number of family members living with the care recipient, quality of relationship with family and dependency level. The health of the caregivers and care recipients was measured using a self-rated question (self-rated health [SRH] was rated as very poor, poor, fair, good and very good)., Results: The study revealed that home nursing care was significantly associated with the health of caregivers aged 65 years or older; however, caregivers aged less than 65 who had used home nursing care, rehabilitation or respite care had poorer health than those who had not used these services. In addition, the following variables significantly improved the health of caregivers aged 65 years or older: caregiver employment, 20% or less of family income spent on caregiving than 81%-100% and higher care recipient health. The involvement of daughters-in-law, rather than spouses, and care recipient health were positively related to the health of caregivers aged less than 65 years., Conclusions: The findings suggest that home-based LTC service use benefits the health of elderly caregivers. By contrast, home-based LTC service use may be negatively correlated with the health of the caregivers aged less than 65 years.

The present study used a genetic engineering method to express a truncated heat shock protein 110 (tHSP110) isoform in Escherichia coli and verified its ability to bind to and present macromolecular antigens. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to obtain the truncated HSP110 gene, which was expressed in E. coli . The tHSP110 protein was non-covalently coupled to the intracellular domain (ICD) of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2/Neu) in vitro to construct the antigen peptide complex tHSP110-ICD, which was identified by a co-immunoprecipitation assay. BALB/c mice were immunized 14-day interval for three times with the HSP110, tHSP110, HSP110-ICD, tHSP110-ICD, HSP110-P 851-859 (a complex formed by full-length HSP110 with a cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) epitope peptide of the Her2/neu ICD) and tHSP110-P 851-859 complexes. Fourteen days after the last immunization, D 2 F 2 cells were inoculated into BALB/c mice. The in vivo tumor volume of each group was measured every three days after cell inoculation to evaluate the immunization efficacy of the vaccine in each group. The level of the IFN-γ secreted by activated lymphocytes, the specific CTLs activity was detected. Immunohistochemical staining of bcl-2 and bax were measured on the tumor tissues of each group. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) showed that the expressed tHSP110 protein was 66 kDa in size. The non-covalent coupling of tHSP110 with ICD and peptide were confirmed by a co-immunoprecipitation assay. The in vivo tumor experiment results indicated no differences in the tumor volumes of the tHSP110-ICD and HSP110-ICD groups. In contrast, the tumor volume of the tHSP110-ICD group was significantly different compared with the tumor volume of the tHSP110-P 851-859 group. After the mice immunized with tHSP110-ICD, tHSP110-P 851-859 complexes, the complexes have potential immunogenicity, and can induce specific CTLs activity and apoptosis in BALB/c mice. As a tumor vaccine to inhibit in vivo tumor growth, the tHSP110 has the same ability to bind macromolecular antigens and activate tumor immune responses as full-length HSP110., Competing Interests: None., (IJCEP Copyright © 2017.)

Cuffless technique enables continuous blood pressure (BP) measurement in an unobtrusive manner, and thus has the potential to revolutionize the conventional cuff-based approaches. This study extends the pulse transit time (PTT) based cuffless BP measurement method by introducing a new indicator - the photoplethysmogram (PPG) intensity ratio (PIR). The performance of the models with PTT and PIR was comprehensively evaluated in comparison with six models that are based on sole PTT. The validation conducted on 33 subjects with and without hypertension, at rest and under various maneuvers with induced BP changes, and over an extended calibration interval, respectively. The results showed that, comparing to the PTT models, the proposed methods achieved better accuracy on each subject group at rest state and over 24 hours calibration interval. Although the BP estimation errors under dynamic maneuvers and over extended calibration interval were significantly increased for all methods, the proposed methods still outperformed the compared methods in the latter situation. These findings suggest that additional BP-related indicator other than PTT has added value for improving the accuracy of cuffless BP measurement. This study also offers insights into future research in cuffless BP measurement for tracking dynamic BP changes and over extended periods of time.

Background & Objective: Atypical chemokine receptor 1(ACKR1) represents an atypical chemokine receptor that can bind promiscuously to various chemokines. Chemokines play a crucial role to recruit leukocyte subsets migration through the endothelium and into liver against the virus during the progression of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Most HCV positive patients can lead to liver fibrosis. Hyaluronic acid (HA), laminin (LN), collagen IV(C-IV) and amino-terminal pro-peptide of Type-III pro-collagen (PIII NP) are indices of the extent of liver fibrosis. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between ACKR1 polymorphism and liver fibrosis with these four serum liver markers in HCV positive patients., Methods: From April 2015 to December 2015, a total of 210 patients (109 males and 101 females) with chronic HCV infection at Dalian Infectious Hospital were recruited to participate in this study. ACKR1 genotyping was using TaqMan probes method. HA, LN, C-IV and PIII NP were detected by using diagnostic kits., Results: We compared serum levels of HA, LN, C-IV and PIII NP between FY * A/FY * A and FY * A/FY * B patients and the differences were not significant ( P =0.905, P =0.298, P =0.880 and P =0.470, respectively)., Conclusions: This study has attempted to elucidate the role of ACKR1 polymorphism in liver fibrosis progression of HCV infection, our results demonstrated that ACKR1 polymorphism is not directly associated with the fibrogenesis in HCV positive patients.

Cuffless technology for blood pressure (BP) measurement offers great potential for unobtrusive monitoring of hypertension. However, the accuracy is still a challenging issue probably owning to the inadequacy of existing noninvasive BP indicators in tracking BP changes, i.e., either the poor trackability of the indicators or the lack of relationship to map the indicators to BP. To figure out the covariation of BP-related noninvasive indicators and BP, we propose to analyze the coherence of intra-arterial systolic BP (SBP) and a selected group of noninvasive indicators, including the mostly used pulse transit time (PTT), photoplethysmogram intensity ratio (PIR) and RR interval (RRI) of electrocardiogram (ECG), in both time domain, with singular spectrum analysis (SSA), and frequency domain, with cross-spectral analysis. Through SSA the SBP and the indicators are decomposed into fast oscillations superimposed on a slow time-varying component. It is found that the fast variation components oscillate at similar frequencies for the SBP and the indicators, while that their slow variation components are out of phase synchronization. Cross-spectra between SBP and the indicators further illustrate stronger coherence correlation at high frequencies (HF, 0.15-0.40 Hz) (PTT: 0.54±0.30, PIR: 0.73±0.25, RRI: 0.63±0.25) than at low frequencies (LF, 0.04-0.15 Hz) (PTT: 0.24±0.19, PIR: 0.37±0.23, RRI: 0.33±0.23). The results suggest that the widely used indicators are poor to track the LF component of BP. Our study reveals the importance of exploring LF-related BP indicators as well as new models to integrate LF and HF information for improvement of cuffless BP measurement accuracy.

Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is a promising strategy that involves reconstruction of gut microbiota. Recently, it has been considered as a treatment of Crohn's disease (CD) and certain neurological diseases. Here, to the best of our knowledge, we report the first case that used FMT to achieve remission of intestinal and neurological symptoms in a girl with CD and a 17-year history of epilepsy. During the 20 mo of follow-up, FMT has proved its efficacy in preventing relapse of seizures after withdrawing the antiepileptic drugs. Furthermore, this finding highlights the role of microbiota-gut-brain axis and inspires a novel treatment for epilepsy through remodeling gut microbiota., Competing Interests: Conflict-of-interest statement: Zhang FM is a core inventor of the GenFMTer. The other authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose. This case was orally presented by Zhang FM in the 3rd China Holistic Integrative Enterology Conference at May 8, 2016.

As the first systematic examination of simple sequence repeats (SSRs) and guanine-cytosine (GC) distribution in intragenic and intergenic regions of ten primates, our study showed that SSRs and GC displayed nonrandom distribution for both intragenic and intergenic regions, suggesting that they have potential roles in transcriptional or translational regulation. Our results suggest that the majority of SSRs are distributed in non-coding regions, such as the introns, TEs, and intergenic regions. In these primates, trinucleotide perfect (P) SSRs were the most abundant repeats type in the 5'UTRs and CDSs, whereas, mononucleotide P-SSRs were the most in the intron, 3'UTRs, TEs, and intergenic regions. The GC-contents varied greatly among different intragenic and intergenic regions: 5'UTRs > CDSs > 3'UTRs > TEs > introns > intergenic regions, and high GC-content was frequently distributed in exon-rich regions. Our results also showed that in the same intragenic and intergenic regions, the distribution of GC-contents were great similarity in the different primates. Tri- and hexanucleotide P-SSRs had the most GC-contents in the 5'UTRs and CDSs, whereas mononucleotide P-SSRs had the least GC-contents in the six genomic regions of these primates. The most frequent motifs for different length varied obviously with the different genomic regions., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether pulse transit time (PTT) can be used for continuous monitoring of respiratory rate (RR). We derived PTT from the electrocardiogram and photoplethysmogram obtained from 42 recordings of CapnoBase, a publicly available benchmark data set for validating respiratory related measurements. The number of breaths in a minute (RR#) was estimated from the heart rate interval (HRI), pulse rate interval (PRI), and from PTT. In addition, to improve the estimation reliability, we investigated a fusion of the three HRI, PRI and PTT derived estimations. The root mean squared error (RSME) and a Bland-Altman plot were calculated using RR from capnography as reference. Finally, the proposed method was compared against the CapnoBase Smart Fusion RR benchmark estimation which estimates RR with three parameters extracted from the PPG signal alone. Thirty-seven recordings showed sufficient signal quality to estimate RR from PTT. The fused RR (RMSE 1.76 breaths/min) was more accurate than the estimations from PTT (RMSE 2.63 breaths/min), HRI (RMSE 1.96 breaths/min), and PRI (RMSE 2.73 breaths/min) alone. The proposed method also outperformed the CapnoBase benchmark (RMSE 3.08 breaths/min) algorithm. This study demonstrates that PTT is a valuable noninvasive parameter from which RR can be estimated.

Pulse transit time (PTT) has been widely studied as an index of blood pressure (BP) changes. In recent years, some prototypes of PTT-based wearable BP measurement devices have been developed, which can relieve users from the discomfort caused by the inflating cuff used in auscultatory and oscillometric BP measurement techniques. However, in the common practice for PTT detection, multi-site sensor implementation on human body is required, making it difficult for the integration of wearable devices. Since multi-wavelength (MW) photoplethysmogram (PPG) signals carry blood pulsation information of different blood vessels embedded in different skin depths, the time difference between different wavelength PPG signals collected at the same body site can be treated as a special PTT on a short length of blood vessels beneath the skin. In this work, the time difference between MW PPG, denoted as PTT&#95;MW, was explored to track BP changes as a substitute of infrared (IR) PTT&#95;EP. (PTT&#95;EP is the time interval between electrocardiogram (ECG) and IR PPG.) Ten healthy adult subjects participated in the experiment, and their continuous BP, ECG and fingertip MW PPG signals generated from blue, green, yellow and IR light were recorded after 2-minute static handgrip exercise at 33% maximal voluntary contraction. The results showed that the correlation between Systolic BP (SBP) and IR-Blue PTT&#95;MW (|r|= 0.52) was comparable to the correlation between SBP and IR PTT&#95;EP (|r|= 0.59). Moreover, we optimized the wavelength combination of PTT&#95;MWs for each subject and found the average value of optimal correlation between SBP and PTT&#95;MW reached 0.76, which was significantly (p<;0.01) higher than the correlation between IR PTT&#95;EP and SBP. This study reveals that the time difference between MW PPG can be potentially used as PTT for cuffless BP measurement with its unique advantage in simple sensor implementation at only one body site.

Recently, rehabilitation treadmills are designed for helping injured persons such as stroke patients and injury athletes in the process of physical therapy. By monitoring the changes of paces and gaits, one can estimate the progress of rehabilitation. At present, most devices that can estimate paces and gaits are wearable and/or expensive. This paper presents an inexpensive, non-intrusive wireless binary sensor system for pace estimation and lower-extreme gait recognition with low data throughput and high energy efficiency. The asymmetric but periodic movement of injured person allows the study of pace and gait. The pace estimation is achieved by using autocorrelation function. The gait information is represented by three features (1) temporal correlation, (2) marginal density (intersection probability), and (3) spatial correlation from binary data steam. Experimental results shows that our system can estimate the pace of walking or running with the accuracy of 97.7%. By using only three features, abnormal gaits can also be recognized.

Accurate and ambulatory measurement of blood pressure (BP) is essential for efficient diagnosis, management and prevention of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). However, traditional cuff-based BP measurement methods provide only intermittent BP readings and can cause discomfort with the occlusive cuff. Although pulse transit time (PTT) method is promising for cuffless and continuous BP measurement, its pervasive use is restricted by its limited accuracy and requirement of placing sensors on multiple body sites. To tackle these issues, we propose a novel dual-modality arterial pulse monitoring system for continuous blood pressure measurement, which simultaneously records the pressure and photoplethysmography (PPG) signals of radial artery. The obtained signals can be used to generate a pressure-volume curve, from which the elasticity index (EI) and viscosity index (VI) can be extracted. Experiments were carried out among 7 healthy subjects with their PPG, ECG, arterial pressure wave and reference BP collected to examine the effectiveness of the proposed indexes. The results of this study demonstrate that a linear regression model combining EI and VI has significantly higher BP tracking correlation coefficient as compared to the PTT method. This suggests that the proposed system and method can potentially be used for convenient and continuous blood pressure estimation with higher accuracy.

Neuroblastoma (NB) is an embryonic solid tumor derived from precursor cells of the sympathetic nervous system, and accounts for 11% of childhood cancers and around 15% of cancer deaths in children. SUMOylation and deSUMOylation are dynamic mechanisms regulating a spectrum of protein activities. The SUMO proteases (SENP) remove SUMO conjugate from proteins, and their expression is deregulated in diverse cancers. However, nothing is known about the role of SENPs in NBL. In the present study, we found that SENP1 expression was significantly high in metastatic NB tissues compared with primary NB tissues. Overexpression of SENP1 promoted NB cells migration and invasion. Inhibition of SENP1 could significantly suppress NB cell migration and invasion. Moreover, we found that SENP1 could regulate the expression of CDH1, MMP9, and MMP2. In summary, the data presented here indicate a significant role of SENP1 in the regulation of cell migration and invasion in NB and suppress SENP1 expression as promising candidates for novel treatment strategies of NB., (© 2015 International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.)