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Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) incurs a huge individual, societal, and economic burden. Specific and selective targeting of hypoglossal motor neurons could be an effective means to treat OSA. Bioluminescent-optogenetics (BL-OG) is a novel genetic regulatory approach in which luminopsins, fusion proteins of light-generating luciferase and light-sensing ion channels, increase neuronal excitability when exposed to a suitable substrate. Here we develop and validate the feasibility of BL-OG for sleep-disordered breathing (SDB). Upon confirming that diet-induced obese mice represent an excellent SDB model, we employed a method of targeting the hypoglossal nucleus (12 N) by peripherally injecting retrogradely transported rAAV2/Retro. With AAV transduction, the eLMO3 protein is expressed in hypoglossal motor neurons (HMN); administration of CTZ results in production of bioluminescence that in turn activates the tethered channelrhodopsin, leading to an increase in the firing of HMN and a 2.7 ± 0.8-fold increase in phasic activity of the genioglossus muscle, a 7.6 ± 1.8-fold increase in tonic activity, and improvements in hypoventilation and apnea index without impacting sleep structure. This is therefore the first study to leverage the rAAV2/Retro vector to execute the BL-OG approach in SDB, which amplified genioglossus muscle discharge activity and increased airflow in mice after activation. This study marks the pioneering utilization of BL-OG in SDB research.

This study introduces an improved lightweight section-steel surface detection (ILSSD) YOLOX-s algorithm model to enhance feature fusion performance in single-stage target detection networks, addressing the low accuracy in detecting defects on section-steel surfaces and limited computing resources at steel plants. The ILSSD YOLOX-s model is improved by introducing the deep-wise separable convolution (DSC) module to reduce parameter count, a dual parallel attention module for improved feature extraction efficiency, and a weighted feature fusion path using bi-directional feature pyramid network (BiFPN). Additionally, the CIoU loss function is employed for boundary frame regression to enhance prediction accuracy. Based on the NEU-DET dataset, experimental results demonstrate that the ILSSD YOLOX-s algorithm model achieves a 75.9% mean average precision with an IoU threshold of 0.5 (mAP@0.5), an improvement of 7.1 percentage points over the original YOLOX-s model, with a detection speed of 78.4 frames per second (FPS). Its practicality is validated through training and validating it with a lightweight section-steel surface defect dataset from an industrial steel plant, further confirming its viability for industrial defect detection applications.

Abstract The mechanism underlying acute kidney injury (AKI) and AKI-to-Chronic kidney disease (CKD) transition remains unclear, but mitochondrial dysfunction may be a key driving factor. Literature reports suggest that dual-specificity phosphatase 1 (DUSP1) plays a critical role in maintaining mitochondrial function and structural integrity. In this study, ischemic Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) and post-ischemic fibrosis models were established by clamping the renal pedicle with different reperfusion times. To investigate the role of DUSP1, constitutional Dusp1 knockout mice and tubular-specific Sting knockout mice were used. Mitochondrial damage was assessed through electron microscopy observation, measurements of mitochondrial membrane potential, mtDNA release, and BAX translocation. We found that Dusp1 expression was significantly upregulated in human transplant kidney tissue and mouse AKI tissue. Dusp1 gene deletion exacerbated acute ischemic injury, post-ischemic renal fibrosis, and tubular mitochondrial dysfunction in mice. Mechanistically, DUSP1 could directly bind to JNK, and DUSP1 deficiency could lead to aberrant phosphorylation of JNK and BAX mitochondria translocation. BAX translocation promoted mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) leakage and activated the cGAS-STING pathway. Inhibition of JNK or BAX could inhibit mtDNA leakage. Furthermore, STING knockout or JNK inhibition could significantly mitigate the adverse effects of DUSP1 deficiency in ischemic AKI model. Collectively, our findings suggest that DUSP1 is a regulator for the protective response during AKI. DUSP1 protects against AKI by preventing BAX-induced mtDNA leakage and blocking excessive activation of the cGAS-STING signaling axis through JNK dephosphorylation.

BackgroundTalaromycosis is a serious opportunistic infectious disease caused by Talaromyces marneffei, which mostly occurs in immunocompromised patients. The disease is mainly prevalent in tropical countries and regions of Southeast Asia and South Asia, but non-endemic areas also have patients with Talaromycosis. The disease has no characteristic clinical manifestations and is difficult to diagnose. Delayed diagnosis often leads to death.Case presentationBoth patients had cellular immunodeficiency. Case 1 had a history of acquired immune deficiency syndrome, and case 2 had a history of renal transplantation and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency. They all had fever, anemia, fatigue, and skin lesions. Case 1 had gastrointestinal bleeding, enlarged lymph nodes, and hepatosplenomegaly. Case 2 had cough and dyspnea. Both patients had thrombocytopenia and hypoalbuminemia; an increased neutrophil ratio, procalcitonin, and C-reactive protein; and abnormal liver function and coagulation dysfunction. Case 1 sputum culture, blood culture, and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid were positive for T. marneffei. T. marneffei was detected in the blood culture of case 2, with infection of Candida parapsilosis and Pneumocystis jirovecii. Chest computed tomography scan mainly showed pulmonary exudative lesions. Although these two patients were actively treated, they died of poor efficacy.ConclusionTalaromycosis has an insidious onset, long course, atypical clinical symptoms, imaging performance and laboratory results, difficult diagnosis, and high mortality. Therefore, it is important to promptly consider and treat Talaromycosis in immunocompromised patients upon infection in order to reduce mortality.

The effect of different initial degrees of saturation on the behaviour of variably saturated soils around an expanding cavity has not been adequately studied thus far. Therefore, this study aimed to fill this gap. Moreover, it sought to theoretically explain the cylindrical cavity expansion response in unsaturated three-phase media, particularly focusing on its effect on the cavity wall during the transition from an unsaturated to a saturated state. To this end, a semi-analytical solution based on a hydromechanically coupled Sheng-Fredlund-Gens model was proposed for the undrained cavity expansion problem in variably saturated soils in which unsaturated and fully saturated regions coexisted around the cavity. The cylindrical cavity expansion and expansion pressure response in initially unsaturated soils (considering different initial degrees of saturation) and initially fully saturated soils were explored. The proposed solution further extends the cavity expansion theory to unsaturated soils. Furthermore, this work could serve as a theoretical framework for modelling of the cavity expansion problem in the variably saturated soils considering the effect of hydraulic state transition. Key words: cavity expansion theory, variably saturated soils, coupled hydromechanical behaviour, expansion pressure response, soil-water characteristic curve, 1. Introduction The cavity expansion problem under plane strain conditions is of interest to researchers and engineers. The limit of internal expansion pressure on the cavity wall of an expanded [...]