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CoP@NC HNS manifest superior electrocatalytic oxygen evolution performance with low overpotential (320 mV, 10 mA cm−2), small Tafel slope (68 mV dec−1), and remarkable stability in alkaline electrolyte.

PI3K-AKT signaling is among the most attractive cancer therapeutic targets and the first PI3Kα inhibitor has been approved for breast cancer therapy and hundreds of clinical trials. However, how to predict or monitor tumor response to PI3Kα inhibitor in a non-invasive method remains challenging. Here, we developed a PET imaging probe 68Ga-pAKTi detecting phosphorylated-AKT to precisely assess breast tumor response to PI3Kα inhibitor non-invasively in vivo. Using triple negative breast cancer as model, 68Ga-pAKTi PET/CT imaging showed robust radioactive accumulation in PTEN lost or PIK3CA mutated tumors that hyper-phosphorylate AKT. Moreover, changes of 68Ga-pAKTi uptake upon short-term PI3Kα inhibition differentiated PIK3CA mutated tumors from PTEN lost tumors to predict long-term tumor response to PI3Kα inhibitor. Together, our 68Ga-pAKTi PET imaging visualized AKT phosphorylation in vivo, and accurately predicted tumor responses to PI3Kα inhibitor. This work supports future clinical trials using 68Ga-pAKTi PET/CT to optimize clinical implication of PI3K pathway drugs for cancer treatment.

Purpose Imaging the PARP expression using 18F probes has been approved in clinical trials. Nevertheless, hepatobiliary clearance of both 18F probes hindered their application in monitoring abdominal lesions. Our novel 68Ga-labelled probes aim for fewer abdominal signals while ensuring PARP targeting by optimizing the pharmacokinetic properties of radioactive probes. Methods Three radioactive probes targeted PARP were designed, synthesized, and evaluated based on the PARP inhibitor Olaparib. These 68Ga-labelled radiotracers were assessed in vitro and in vivo. Results Precursors that did not lose binding affinity for PARP were designed, synthesized, and then labelled with 68Ga in high radiochemical purity (> 97%). The 68Ga-labelled radiotracers were stable. Due to the increased expression of PARP-1 in SK-OV-3 cells, the uptake of the three radiotracers by SK-OV-3 cells was significantly greater than that by A549 cells. PET/CT imaging of the SK-OV-3 models indicated that the tumor uptake of 68Ga-DOTA-Olaparib (0.5 h: 2.83 ± 0.55%ID/g; 1 h: 2.37 ± 0.64%ID/g) was significantly higher than that of the other 68Ga-labelled radiotracers. There was a significant difference in the T/M (tumor-to-muscle) ratios between the unblocked and blocked groups as calculated from the PET/CT images (4.07 ± 1.01 vs. 1.79 ± 0.45, P = 0.0238 Conclusion As the first 68Ga-labelled PARP inhibitor, 68Ga-DOTA-Olaparib displayed high stability and quick PARP imaging in a tumor model. This compound is thus a promising imaging agent that can be used in a personalized PARP inhibitor treatment regimen.

Abstract: Tumors of the urinary system include those in the urinary and reproductive systems, of which tumors of the prostate, bladder, and kidney have the highest incidence. In recent years, due to changes in dietary structure, prostate cancer has become the most common type of male genitourinary system cancer. Furthermore, due to tobacco consumption, increases in industrialization, and the age of the population, the incidence of bladder cancer in both males and females in both urban and rural areas, has shown an increasing trend. The incidence and mortality of kidney cancer have also increased and negatively affected the lives and health of all residents. While surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy have greatly improved the cure and survival rates of patients with urinary tumors, we lack methods for early detection and effective long-term treatment. New tools and methods for diagnosis and treatment are thus urgently needed. Recently, CRISPR/Cas9 has become an efficient method to alter the genome in many organisms. It can be used to activate or inhibit gene expression, which greatly facilitates the editing of targeted genes, both in vivo and in vitro. It provides a powerful scientific research tool to analyze the mechanisms of disease occurrence and development and to develop advanced targeted drug delivery. The diagnosis and treatment of human tumors will consequently be improved as this technology will surely accelerate cancer research. In this article, we discuss how CRISPR/Cas9 technology can be used to research and treat genitourinary system tumors will consequently be improved as this technology will surely accelerate cancer research. Here, we review the current applications of CRISPR/Cas9 technology for genitourinary system tumor research and therapy

We propose a robust geometry-constrained scale estimation approach for monocular visual odometry that takes the camera height as an absolute reference. Visual odometry is an essential module for robot self-localization and autonomous navigation in unexplored environments. Scale recovery is an indispensable requirement for monocular visual odometry as it makes up the metric information lost by the single camera and helps to reduce the scale drift. When the camera height is considered as the absolute reference, the precision of scale recovery depends on the accuracy of the road point selection and road geometric model calculation. However, most of the previous approaches solve these two problems sequentially, and their road point selection is based on the color model of the road or prior-knowledge-based fixed region. In this paper, we novelly propose to combine and iteratively solve these two problems. We adopt the geometric model, instead of the color model, of the road to select the road points. Furthermore, the selected road feature points are used to estimate the road model, which in turn limits the road point selection. In detail, we segment our feature points with Delaunay triangulation and select road points guided by the depth consistency and road model consistency. The experiments on the KITTI dataset show that our method achieves the best performance among state-of-the-art monocular visual odometry methods.

Background Angiolipoma has been reported in many cases, and it often occurs in the skin of the trunk and limbs. However, angiolipoma in the scrotum is a rare disease with unknown etiology. This condition is difficult to diagnosis with other lumps in the scrotum. Case summary A 32-year-old man presented to the urinary department with a history of an enlarged left scrotum with increasing discomfort for about 5 years. Physical examination revealed that there were a palpable mass measuring about 7.0 cm × 6.5 cm in the left scrotum, with smooth surfaces but without tenderness or adhesion to the skin. Ultrasound showed that there was a hyperechoic mass under the skin of the top scrotum, about 72 mm × 64 mm × 21 mm in size, with clear borders, uneven internal echo, and abundant blood flow signals. Serum human chorionic gonadotropin and alpha-fetoprotein were in normal level. Subcutaneous mass resection at the bottom of the left scrotum was performed under local anesthesia with 1% lidocaine. Postoperative pathological examination resulted in a diagnosis of subcutaneous angiolipoma of the scrotum. No evidence of recurrence was found at 6 mo after surgery and there were no complaints of discomfort. Conclusion Angiolipoma is an extremely rare type of benign tumor extremely rarely found in the scrotum, but needs to be considered when evaluating scrotal masses especially when the mass is solid. According to the characteristics of angiolipoma, surgical resection is the best treatment strategy and it is not prone to recurrence after resection.

Lumpy skin disease is caused by lumpy skin disease virus (LSDV), which can induce cattle with high fever and extensive nodules on the mucosa or the scarfskin, seriously influencing the cattle industry development and international import and export trade. Since 2013, the disease has spread rapidly and widely throughout the Russia and Asia. In the past few decades, progress has been made in the study of LSDV. It is mainly transmitted by blood-sucking insects, and various modes of transmission with distinct seasonality. Figuring out how the virus spreads will help eradicate LSDV at its source. In the event of an outbreak, selecting the most effective vaccine to block and eliminate the threat posed by LSDV in a timely manner is the main choice for farmers and authorities. At present, a variety of vaccines for LSDV have been developed. The available vaccine products vary in quality, protection rate, safety and side effects. Early detection of LSDV can help reduce the cost of disease. In addition, because LSDV has a huge genome, it is currently also used as a vaccine carrier, forming a new complex with other viral genes through homologous recombination. The vaccine prepared based on this can have a certain preventive effect on many kinds of diseases. Clinical detection of disease including nucleic acid and antigen level. Each method varies in convenience, accuracy, cost, time and complexity of equipment. This article reviews our current understanding of the mode of transmission of LSDV and advances in vaccine types and detection methods, providing a background for further research into various aspects of LSDV in the future.

With the exponential growth of data created at the network edge, decentralized and Gossip-based training of deep learning (DL) models on edge computing (EC) gains tremendous research momentum, owing to its capability to learn from resource-strenuous edge nodes with limited network connectivity. Today’s edge devices are extremely heterogeneous, e.g., hardware and software stacks, and result in high performance variation of training time and inducing extra delay to synchronize and converge. The large body of prior art accelerates DL, being data or model parallelization, via a centralized server, e.g., parameter server scheme, which may easily turn into the system bottleneck or single point of failure. In this artice, we propose EdgeGossip, a framework specifically designed to accelerate the training process of decentralized and Gossip-based DL training for heterogeneous EC platforms. EdgeGossip features on: (i) low performance variation among multiple EC platforms during iterative training, and (ii) accuracy-aware training to fastly obtain best possible model accuracy. We implement EdgeGossip based on popular Gossip algorithms and demonstrate its effectiveness using real-world DL workloads, i.e., considerably reducing model training time by an average of 2.70 times while only incurring accuracy losses of 0.78 percent.

Weijie Xie,1 Huan Guo,1 Jiawei Zhang,1 Li Hu,2 Yuqi Wu,1 Xiangwei Wang1,3 1Department of Urology & Carson International Cancer Center, Shenzhen University General Hospital & Shenzhen University Clinical Medical Academy Center, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Physiology, Shantou University of Medical College, Shantou, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Urology, 3rd Affiliated Hospital and Department of Perioperative Medicine of Southern University of Science and Technology, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Xiangwei Wang; Yuqi WuDepartment of Urology & Carson International Cancer Center, Shenzhen University General Hospital & Shenzhen University Clinical Medical Academy Center, Shenzhen University, No. 1098, Xueyuan Road, Shenzhen University City, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86 17796349157Fax +86 075521839000Email winn0324@szu.edu.cn; wuyq0531@szu.edu.cnPurpose: Prostate cancer is the most common malignant urinary tumor among men. Treatments are currently unsatisfactory for advanced prostate cancer. Cancer biology remains the basis for developing new antitumor drugs. Therefore, it is crucial to study the metabolic reprogramming, immune microenvironment, and immune evasion of tumors. This study aimed to clarify the relationship between tumor glycolysis and immune function in prostate cancer.Materials and Methods: We downloaded the gene expression matrix and clinical data of prostate cancer from The Cancer Genome Atlas. We studied the expression profiles and prognostic significance of glycolysis-related genes and used CIBERSORT to identify the proportion of tumor-infiltrating immune cells. Through differential gene expression analysis, gene ontology analysis, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis, gene set enrichment analysis, and correlation analysis, we further explored the relationship between glycolytic activity and immune function. We also performed immunohistochemistry, Western blot and RT-qPCR experiments using human prostate cancer tissue and cell lines to verify the expression of some glycolytic genes, macrophage infiltration and polarization.Results: Among glycolysis-related genes, the expression of SLC16A3 in prostate cancer tissues was lower than that in normal tissues, but its high expression was associated with poor prognosis. In the high SLC16A3 expression group, several glycolysis-related genes also showed high expression, which was confirmed by immunohistochemistry experiments and Western blot. In high-glycolysis group, the expression of immune-related genes and the interleukin-17 (IL-17) signaling pathway were upregulated. CD8+ T cells, regulatory T cells, macrophages, and other immune cells were highly enriched. Among them, M2 macrophage infiltration was associated with poor prognosis.Conclusion: The enhanced glycolytic activity of prostate cancer may contribute to the formation of a pro-tumor immune microenvironment. The IL-17 signaling pathway may play an important mediating role in the interaction between tumor glycolysis and immune function.Keywords: glycolysis, tumor-infiltrating immune cells, IL-17 signaling pathway, TCGA

Stretchable transparent conductive films (STCFs) show great potential for application in flexible electronics. Herein, a facile and scalable method to prepare STCFs based on Ag nanowires (AgNWs) fo...

Change detection (CD) is a technique widely used in remote sensing for identifying the differences between data acquired at different times. Most existing 3D CD approaches voxelize point clouds into 3D grids, project them into 2D images, or rasterize them into digital surface models due to the irregular format of point clouds and the variety of changes in three-dimensional (3D) objects. However, the details of the geometric structure and spatiotemporal sequence information may not be fully utilized. In this article, we propose PBFormer, a transformer network with Siamese architecture, for directly inferring pointwise changes in bi-temporal 3D point clouds. First, we extract point sequences from irregular 3D point clouds using the k-nearest neighbor method. Second, we uniquely use a point transformer network as an encoder to extract point feature information from bitemporal 3D point clouds. Then, we design a module for fusing the spatiotemporal features of bi-temporal point clouds to effectively detect change features. Finally, multilayer perceptrons are used to obtain the CD results. Extensive experiments conducted on the Urb3DCD benchmark show that PBFormer outperforms other excellent approaches for 3D point cloud CD tasks.

The ectopic introduction of the human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) is an effective way to establish an immortalized cell line. Here, hTERT was obtained by RT-PCR, and the eukaryotic expression plasmid and lentivirus shuttle plasmid of hTERT was successfully constructed by the homologous recombination method. The stable expression of hTERT in fetal cow skin fibroblasts (CSF) was established using the lentivirus package system. The hTERT-CSF proliferate and have immortalized characteristics. Meanwhile, the chromosome analysis identified that the number and structure of the hTERT-CSF genome maintain stable. The indirect immunofluorescence, western blot, and flow cytometry showed that the hTERT gene had been successfully integrated into the primary genome of bovine skin and stably expressed. The viral infection experiment first identifies the hTERT-CSF as a vulnerable cell model responding to the Lumpy skin disease virus (LSDV). Establishing hTERT-CSF provides an important cell model for basic and applied research, clinical application, and vaccine development. It provides an essential reference for the future's rapid establishment of other immortalized cell lines.

microRNA (miRNA) is an important part of non-coding RNA that regulates gene expression at a posttranscriptional level. miRNA has gained increasing interest in recent years, both in research and clinical fields. miRNAs have been found to play an important role in various diseases, particularly cancer. Aberrant miR-424 expression is found in several tumors where they can function as either oncogenes or tumor-suppressor genes. Meanwhile, miR-424 is also affected by the reorganization of many other non-coding RNAs such as lncRNA and cirRNA. Several studies have found that miR-424 participates in proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, invasion, angiogenesis, and drug resistance, and plays an important role in the tumorigenesis and progression of tumors. This review will focus on the recent progress of research on miR-424 in tumors.

Monocular visual odometry, with the ability to help robots to locate themselves in unexplored environments, has been a crucial research problem in robotics. Though the existed learning-based end-to-end methods can reduce engineering efforts such as accurate camera calibration and tedious case-by-case parameter tuning, the accuracy is still limited. One of the main reasons is that previous works aim to learn six-degrees-of-freedom motions despite the constrained motion of a ground vehicle by its mechanical structure and dynamics. To push the limit, we analyze the motion pattern of a ground vehicle and focus on learning two-degrees-of-freedom motions by proposed motion focusing and decoupling. The experiments on KITTI dataset show that the proposed motion focusing and decoupling approach can improve the visual odometry performance by reducing the relative pose error. Moreover, with the dimension reduction of the learning objective, our network is much lighter with only four convolution layers, which can quickly converge during the training stage and run in real-time at over 200 frames per second during the testing stage.

Avian paramyxoviruses 1 has the ability to edit its P gene to generate three amino-coterminal proteins (P, V and W), but its kinetic change is unclear. In this study, next-generation sequencing (NGS) was used to analyze the P-gene editing of Newcastle disease virus (NDV). Transcriptome analysis of chicken embryonic tissues and bursa of fabricius showed the P-gene editing frequencies were 45.46–52.70%. To investigate the rules of P-gene editing along time, the ratio of PVW was determined by PCR based deep sequencing at multiple time points in cells infected with velogenic and lentogenic strain respectively. The results confirmed similar editing frequencies with transcriptome data and the PVW ratios were stable along time among different NDVs, but had a greater V-gene transcript on velogenic strain infection (P

The ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic poses a severe global threat to public health, as do influenza viruses and other coronaviruses. Here, we present chimpanzee adenovirus 68 (AdC68)-based vaccines designed to universally target coronaviruses and influenza. Our design is centered on an immunogen generated by fusing the SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain (RBD) to the conserved stalk of H7N9 hemagglutinin (HA). Remarkably, the constructed vaccine effectively induced both SARS-CoV-2-targeting antibodies and anti-influenza antibodies in mice, consequently affording protection from lethal SARS-CoV-2 and H7N9 challenges as well as effective H3N2 control. We propose our AdC68-vectored coronavirus-influenza vaccine as a universal approach toward curbing respiratory virus-causing pandemics.

A novel three-dimensional biomimetic porous microsphere was successfully designed in this study, which was composed of PDLLA, bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), and nanohydroxyapatite (nHAp). nHAp/PDLLA/MSC porous microspheres that are supposed to be a significant constituent of bone in vertebrate were prepared to act as biodegradable support materials. In addition, bone MSCs act as seeding cells in bone defect repair. The microstructure of the obtained nHAp/PDLLA/MSC porous microspheres was characterized. Scanning electronic microscopy showed that the composite materials exhibited a cross-linked porous structure. In vivo biocompatibility was studied by the way of implanting the nHAp/PDLLA porous microspheres subcutaneously in rats for 4 and 8 weeks. In addition, the osteogenic capacity of the nHAp/PDLLA/MSC porous microspheres was assessed by implanting the 10 mm × 10 mm × 3 mm cranial defect of New Zealand white rabbits. In vivo studies confirmed that nHAp/PDLLA/MSC porous microspheres had a good biocompatibility and were better in inducing bone regeneration than nHAp/PDLLA porous microspheres and the self-healing process. All of the results suggested that the nHAp/PDLLA/MSC porous microspheres present a remarkable potential in calvarial defect repair and bone tissue engineering.

The SoccerNet 2022 challenges were the second annual video understanding challenges organized by the SoccerNet team. In 2022, the challenges were composed of 6 vision-based tasks: (1) action spotting, focusing on retrieving action timestamps in long untrimmed videos, (2) replay grounding, focusing on retrieving the live moment of an action shown in a replay, (3) pitch localization, focusing on detecting line and goal part elements, (4) camera calibration, dedicated to retrieving the intrinsic and extrinsic camera parameters, (5) player re-identification, focusing on retrieving the same players across multiple views, and (6) multiple object tracking, focusing on tracking players and the ball through unedited video streams. Compared to last year's challenges, tasks (1-2) had their evaluation metrics redefined to consider tighter temporal accuracies, and tasks (3-6) were novel, including their underlying data and annotations. More information on the tasks, challenges and leaderboards are available on https://www.soccer-net.org. Baselines and development kits are available on https://github.com/SoccerNet., Comment: Accepted at ACM MMSports 2022

Protein translocation is an essential process for living cells to respond to different physiological, pathological or environmental stimuli. However, its abnormal occurrence usually results in undesirable outcomes such as tumors. To date, there is still a lack of appropriate methods to detect this event in live animals in a real-time manner. Here, we identified the gradually increased cell-surface translocation of p32 protein from mitochondria during tumor progression. LyP-1-modified gas vesicles (LyP-1-GVs) were developed through conjugating LyP-1 (p32-targeting peptide) to the biosynthetic GVs to monitor the cell-surface level of p32 translocation. The resulting LyP-1-GVs have about 200 nm particle size and good tumor cell targeting performance. Upon systemic administration, LyP-1-GVs can traverse through blood vessels and bind to the tumor cells, producing strong contrast imaging signals in comparison with the non-targeted GVs. The contrast imaging signals correlate well with the cell-surface translocation level of p32 protein and tumor metastatic ability. To our knowledge, this is the first report about the in vivo detection of protein translocation to cell membrane from mitochondria by ultrasound molecular imaging. Our study provides a new strategy to explore the molecular events of protein membrane translocations for evaluation of tumor metastasis at the live animal level.

Boosting and prolonging SARS-CoV-2 vaccine-elicited immunity is paramount for containing the COVID-19 pandemic, which wanes substantially within months after vaccination. Here we demonstrate that the unique strain of probiotic Lactobacillus plantarum GUANKE (LPG) could promote SARS-CoV-2-specific immune responses in both effective and memory phases through enhancing interferon signaling and suppressing apoptotic and inflammatory pathways. Interestingly, oral LPG administration promoted SARS-CoV-2 neutralization antibodies even 6 months after immunization. Furthermore, when LPG was given immediately after SARS-CoV-2 vaccine inoculation, specific neutralization antibodies could be boosted >8-fold in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) and >2-fold in sera, T-cell responses were persistent and stable for a prolonged period both in BAL and the spleen. Transcriptional analyses showed that oral application of LPG mobilized immune responses in the mucosal and systemic compartments; in particular, gut-spleen and gut-lung immune axes were observed. These results suggest that LPG could be applied in combination with SARS-CoV-2 vaccines to boost and prolong both the effective and memory immune responses in mucosal and systemic compartments, thereby improving the efficacy of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination.

Bamboo has become an important kind of fibrous raw material in the world due to its fast-growing property and abundance of natural fiber. During the purification and utilization of bamboo fiber, the removal of lignin is vital and it is affected by the chemical treatment system and drying method. In this paper, the effects of three different delignification chemical systems and three drying methods (air drying, drying and freeze drying) on the physical and chemical properties of bamboo fiber were comparatively studied. The results prove that all three delignification techniques can effectively remove lignin from wood, and by utilizing peroxyformic acid and alkaline sodium sulfite, hemicellulose can be removed to a certain extent. With the selective removal of amorphous hemicellulose and lignin and the hydrolysis of cellulose molecular chains in amorphous regions, all three treatments contributed to an increase in the relative crystallinity of cellulose (ranging from 55% to 60%). Moreover, it was found that the drying methods exerted a certain influence on the mechanical properties of fiber. For instance, drying or air drying would improve the tensile strength of fiber significantly, approximately 2–3.5 times that of original bamboo fiber, and the tensile strength of the drying group reached 850–890 MPa. In addition, the alkaline sodium sulfite treatment had little effect on the thermal stability of bamboo fiber, resulting in high thermal stability of the prepared samples, and the residual mass reached 25–37%. On the contrary, the acetic acid/hydrogen peroxide method exerted great influence on the thermal stability of bamboo fiber, giving rise to a relatively poor thermal stability of prepared fibers, and the residual mass was only about 15%. Among the three drying methods, samples under air drying treatment had the highest residual mass, while those under freeze drying had the lowest. To summarize, the alkaline sodium sulfite method is more suitable for preparing bamboo fiber with higher tensile strength and thermal stability.

Boosting and prolonging SARS-CoV-2 vaccine-elicited immunity is paramount for containing the COVID-19 pandemic, which wanes substantially within months after vaccination. Here we demonstrate that the unique strain of probiotic

Radionuclide activity concentration in drinking water cannot be measured directly at normal conditions. The water samples need to be concentrated under mild boiling conditions according to relevant standards. However, the method takes too long a time that it can hardly handle emergency measurements. A fast concentration method based on vacuum and low temperature is proposed in this study. The method was validated in the gross alpha and gross beta measurement of drinking water samples. The sample preparation time based on liquid scintillation counting (LSC) is only about 80 minutes, and the recovery percent of alpha certified sample is more than 80%, and that of beta certified sample is more than 90%. The experimental results show that the method can be used not only for the preparation of samples of gross alpha and gross beta measurement, but also for the preconcentration of specific nuclides measurement.

Rabies is a lethal zoonotic disease caused by lyssaviruses, such as rabies virus (RABV), that results in nearly 100% mortality once clinical symptoms appear. There are no curable drugs available yet. RABV contains five structural proteins that play an important role in viral replication, transcription, infection, and immune escape mechanisms. In the past decade, progress has been made in research on the pathogenicity of RABV, which plays an important role in the creation of new recombinant RABV vaccines by reverse genetic manipulation. Here, we review the latest advances on the interaction between RABV proteins in the infected host and the applied development of rabies vaccines by using a fully operational RABV reverse genetics system. This article provides a background for more in-depth research on the pathogenic mechanism of RABV and the development of therapeutic drugs and new biologics.

Background: Partial bladder outlet obstruction (pBOO), a common urological disease, often results in bladder tissue inflammation and tissue remodeling. Human urine-derived stem cells (hUSCs) have shown therapeutic benefits in various organ injury models. We used a rat model to investigate the effect of hUSCs on bladder function in pBOO rats and explore the miRNA and gene expression profiles in bladder tissue using RNA-sequencing.Methods: In total, 18 rats were randomly and evenly assigned to three groups: a sham surgery group, a pBOO without USCs therapy group, and a pBOO with USCs therapy group (treated with hUSCs six times every other week). All rats were subjected to routine urodynamic monitoring. Detrusor muscle strips were evaluated and pathophysiology was assessed. Finally, altered miRNA and mRNA expression profiles of bladder tissue were examined using RNA-sequencing and bioinformatic analysis technology.Results: After USC treatment, urodynamic monitoring revealed elevated bladder compliance and maximal voiding pressure, declined end filling pressure and voided volume, and improved detrusor contractility and carbachol sensitivity in pBOO rats. Histology and TUNEL assay showed reduced collagen deposition and muscle cell apoptosis in bladder tissue. The differential expression of eight miRNAs in pBOO rats was reversed by USC treatment. Bioinformatic analysis identified miR-142 and miR-9a as the two largest nodes of differentially expressed miRNAs in the miRNA‑gene interaction network. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis revealed enrichment of multiple significant pathways, including those involved in necroptosis and cytokine-cytokine receptor interactions.Conclusions: This is the first study to reveal the protective effect of hUSCs on bladder function and bladder remodeling in pBOO rats. The miRNA and mRNA expression levels differed in the bladder of pBOO rats with and without USC treatment. Although the mechanism underlying these effects have not been fully elucidated, necroptosis and cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction related pathways may be involved.

Large pore size of fibrous membrane (FM) deteriorates the cycle lifetime and rate capabilities, and the way of obtaining FM with improved electrolyte wettability and decreased pore size is still challenging. Herein, we report a facile method for the fabrication of the polydopamine modification polyacrylonitrile (PDA@PAN) FM via the combination of the spin coating and electrospinning techniques. The PDA coating increases the fiber diameter and the surface roughness of the PAN fibers, thus decreasing the pore size and mitigating the lithium dendrite formation by uniformly distributing Li-ion flux. Meanwhile, PDA modification not only improves the affinity for electrolyte and enhances the ion conductivity (1.39 mS cm−1), but also doubles the stress strength (13.92 MPa) because of the formation of more adhesion structure. Consequently, both the Li/LiFePO4 and Li/Li4Ti5O12 cells involving PDA@PAN FM demonstrate more stable cycle life and better rate capability compared with those of cells based on PAN FM and Celgard membrane. The work also provides a promising separator fabrication strategy for other energy storage systems.

Melanoma Differentiation-Associated protein 5 (MDA5) is a cytoplasmic sensor for viral invasion and plays an important role in regulation of the immune response against Newcastle disease virus (NDV) in chickens. MDA5 was used as an adjuvant to enhance the humoral immune response against influenza virus. In the current study, truncated chicken MDA5 [1–483 aa, chMDA5(483aa)] expressed by recombinant adenovirus was administered to specific-pathogen-free (SPF) chickens to improve the immune response induced by inactivated NDV vaccine. A total of 156 SPF chickens were divided into six groups, and after two rounds of immunization, the humoral immune response, cell-mediated immune (CMI) response and the protective efficacy of the vaccines against NDV challenge were evaluated. The results showed that co-administration of chMDA5(483aa) expressed by adenovirus increased the NDV-specific antibody response by 1.7 times and chickens received chMDA5(483aa) also gained a higher level of CMI response. Consistently, the protective efficacy of the inactivated NDV vaccine against virulent NDV (vNDV) challenge was improved by co-administrate with chMDA5(483aa), as indicated by the reduced morbidity and pathological lesions, lower levels of viral load in organs and reduced virus shedding. Our study demonstrated that chMDA5(433aa) expressed by adenovirus could enhance the immune efficacy of inactivated NDV vaccine in chickens and could be a potential adjuvant candidate in developing chicken NDV vaccines.

MicroRNAs regulate post-transcriptional gene expression via either translational repression or mRNA degradation. They have important roles in both viral infection and host anti-infection processes. We discovered that the miR-375 is significantly upregulated in Newcastle disease virus (NDV)-infected chicken embryonic visceral tissues using a small RNA sequencing approach. Further research revealed that the overexpression of miR-375 markedly decreases the replication of the velogenic NDV F48E9 and the lentogenic NDV La Sota by targeting the M gene of NDV in DF-1 cells. Interestingly, miR-375 has another target, ELAVL4, which regulates chicken fibrocyte cell cycle progression and decreases NDV proliferation. In addition, miR-375 can influence bystander cells by its secretion in culture medium. Our results indicated that miR-375 is an inhibitor of NDV, but can also enhance NDV growth by reducing the expression of its target ELAVL4. These results emphasize the complex roles of microRNAs in the regulation of viral infections.

The role of TANK-binding kinase 1 (TBK1) of humans and mice in innate immunity is well elucidated. Still, the molecular characterization and biological function of the TBK1 gene in herbivorous animals are less studied. Here, the open reading frame (ORF) of TBK1 of the cow and goat was firstly cloned and successfully expressed. The Phylogenetic tree analysis reveals that the TBK1 gene of goats and cows is similar to chicken and mute swans, respectively. Some evolutionary distances of the TBK1 gene were still present among different species. A slightly subcellular distribution difference was observed among full-length and truncated TBK1 of goats and cows. Dual-luciferase reporter assay has shown that the full-length TBK1 of goats and cows plays a vital role in the induction of IFN-β production. The viral infection experiment showed that the over-expression of the full-length TBK1 gene of the cow and goat significantly suppresses intracellular viral replication of the Lumpy skin disease virus (LSDV) in infected cells. Our study showed that TBK1 in the cows and goats is a crucial immunoregulatory for IFN-β production during viral infection, contributing to a better understanding of innate immunity in the herbivorous animal.

Electrospun fiber-based composite membrane with interconnected porous structure has drawn significant attention for application in lithium-ion battery (LIB) owing to its high ion transportation. Here, we report a facile approach to fabricate the hierarchically micro/nanostructured ultrathin SiO2-PAN skin layer on the PAN-PU fibrous membrane surface via electrospinning and sequential electrospraying techniques. Benefiting from the synergistic effect of the micro/nanostructure and the superior electrolyte affinity of the SiO2-PAN skin layer, the as-prepared SiO2-PAN@PAN-PU membrane demonstrates the decreased pore size (1.18 μm), enhanced ionic conductivity (1.4 mS cm−1) and robust electrochemical stability up to 5.08 V. Moreover, the introduction of skin layer endows the as-prepared SiO2-PAN@PAN-PU membrane with improved stress strength (15.7 MPa) and excellent thermostability of 200 °C. Compared with the PAN-PU and Celgard membranes, the dual-layer micro/nanostructured SiO2-PAN@PAN-PU fibrous membrane based Li/LiFePO4 cell assembled with high mass-loading LiFePO4 demonstrates a more stable cycling lifetime with a high discharge capacity (107.4 mAh g−1 at the 105th cycles) and higher rate capability (75.2 mAh g−1 at 1 C). The strategy using electrospraying technique demonstrated in this work will open the door to narrow fibrous membrane pore size and enhance ionic conductivity for potential application in the high-power LIB.

BACKGROUND: The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first reported in China and spread rapidly since the end of 2019. Previous studies have confirmed that SARS-CoV-2 infects host cells via binding to angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2). METHODS: To explore the expression of ACE2 and the potential risk of infection in testis, we performed a bioinformatic analysis based on public databases, and conducted a pilot study using a mouse model. We also collected clinical follow-up date on male patients who had recovered from COVID-19 for 6 months. RESULTS: The results showed that the RNA expression of ACE2 was higher in testis compared with other organs. Single-cell analysis and immunocytochemistry further indicated that Leydig cells were at risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Green fluorescence was only detected in the Leydig cells after intratesticular injection of pseudovirus SARS-CoV-2 in the mouse model. In the clinical follow-up, serum total testosterone level was statistically lower in patients who had recovered from COVID-19 compared with healthy men (P=0.010). CONCLUSIONS: The findings of the present study indicate the potential vulnerability of Leydig cells. It is important to monitor the reproductive system and its complications in male COVID-19 patients. Further studies are still needed on SARS-CoV-2-associated reproductive complications.

Background The number of patients with diabetes is increasing worldwide. Diabetic testicular damage can cause spermiogenesis disorders and sexual dysfunction. We thus explored the role of miRNAs in diabetic testicular damage, and revealed that they could serve as effective prevention and treatment therapeutic targets. Methods Streptozotocin (STZ) was used to generate a rat model of type 2 diabetes. Rat testicular tissues were used for miRNA and mRNA sequencing. Through bioinformatics analysis, we constructed an miRNA–mRNA diabetic testicular damage regulatory network and screened for key miRNAs. We also used Leydig cells to generate a diabetic cell model and detected the downstream target genes of miRNAs, secretion of testosterone, and proliferation and apoptotic levels to elucidate the role and mechanism of the selected miRNAs in diabetic testicular damage. Results Using second-generation sequencing, we identified 19 differentially expressed miRNAs and 555 mRNAs in the testes of diabetic rats. Based on computational prediction of targets and negative regulation relationships, we constructed a miRNA–mRNA regulatory network, including 12 miRNAs and 215 mRNAs. KEGG enrichment analysis revealed that genes were more concentrated on the survival signalling pathway. Based on this, we screened 2 key miRNAs, miR-504 and miR-935. In vitro, glucose could induce an increase in miR-504 and miR-935, whereas a decrease in MEK5 and MEF2C in a dose-dependent manner. Overexpression of miR-504 and miR-935 led to the decreased expression of MEK5 and MEF2C, decreased proliferation rate of Leydig cells, increased apoptotic rate, and decreased secretion of testosterone. Whereas, knockdown of miR-504 and miR-935 displayed opposite tendencies. Conclusions miRNAs play important roles in diabetic testicular damage. miR-504 and miR-935 might regulate testicular damage through the classic survival pathway of MEK5-ERK5-MEF2C. Targeted inhibition of miR-504 and miR-935 could reverse the high-glucose-induced testicular complications, thus posing as a potential therapeutic approach in diabetic testicular injury.

In the scenario of next-item recommendation, previous methods attempt to model user preferences by capturing the evolution of sequential interactions. However, their sequential expression is often limited, without modeling complex dynamics that short-term demands can often be influenced by long-term habits. Moreover, few of them take into account the heterogeneous types of interaction between users and items. In this paper, we model such complex data as a Temporal Heterogeneous Interaction Graph (THIG) and learn both user and item embeddings on THIGs to address next-item recommendation. The main challenges involve two aspects: the complex dynamics and rich heterogeneity of interactions. We propose THIG Embedding (THIGE) which models the complex dynamics so that evolving short-term demands are guided by long-term historical habits, and leverages the rich heterogeneity to express the latent relevance of different-typed preferences. Extensive experiments on real-world datasets demonstrate that THIGE consistently outperforms the state-of-the-art methods.

African swine fever (ASF) is an acute, hemorrhagic and severe infectious disease caused by African swine fever virus (ASFV) in domestic pigs and various wild boars, with a mortality rate up to 100%. ASF was first discovered in 1921 in Kenya. ASFV has a large genome and complex immune escape mechanism creating difficulties in the production of vaccines. Recently, remarkable advances have been made in vaccine development all over the world especially in live-attenuated vaccine. This article aims to review the research progress of ASF attenuated live vaccines in order to provide a reference for the development of vaccines for this disease.

At present, the robot spraying path of the digital camouflage generally refers to the manual spraying experience, and uses a regular strategy to generate the spraying path of each domain of the pattern. Such regular path planning method will produce many redundant paths which affect the efficiency of robot spraying operations. In this paper, we propose a new path planning method to solve this problem. Firstly we adopt the grid method to model the digital camouflage pattern, and then achieve local zone path planning through domain segmentation with color block aggregation, finally we use and improve the genetic algorithm to optimize the spraying path among the local zones. Eventually the path planning of the digital camouflage pattern is realized. The simulation results show that the method we proposed in this paper has a significant improvement compared to the sequential spraying method. The path length of the genetic algorithm is shortened by 31.7% and the path length of the improved genetic algorithm is shortened by 37.0%. Furthermore, the speed of convergence of the improved genetic algorithm is faster than the original genetic algorithm. The above results demonstrate that the method we proposed in this paper is feasible and efficient.

microRNA (miRNA) is an important part of non-coding RNA that regulates gene expression at a posttranscriptional level. miRNA has gained increasing interest in recent years, both in research and clinical fields. miRNAs have been found to play an important role in various diseases, particularly cancer. Aberrant miR-424 expression is found in several tumors where they can function as either oncogenes or tumor-suppressor genes. Meanwhile, miR-424 is also affected by the reorganization of many other non-coding RNAs such as lncRNA and cirRNA. Several studies have found that miR-424 participates in proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, invasion, angiogenesis, and drug resistance, and plays an important role in the tumorigenesis and progression of tumors. This review will focus on the recent progress of research on miR-424 in tumors.

An outbreak of a novel coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, occurred in China towards the end of 2019, and has spread rapidly ever since. Previous studies showed that some virus could affect the reproductive system and cause long-term complications. Recent studies exploring the source of 2019-nCoV using genomic sequencing have revealed that 2019-nCoV enters the host cells via the angiotensin-converting enzyme II (ACE2), the receptor that recognizes 2019-nCoV. To investigate the expression of ACE2 and to explore the potential risk of infection in the reproductive system, we performed a thorough bioinformatic analysis on data from public databases involving RNA expression, protein expression, and single-cell RNA expression studies. The analyzed data showed high levels of ACE2 mRNA and protein expression in the testis and spermatids and equal levels of ACE2 expression in the uterus and lung. Comprehensive single-cell analysis identified ACE2 expression in the lung, testis, spermatids, and uterus. In conclusion, this study revealed the potential risk associated with the 2019-nCoV infection in the reproductive system and predicted that long-term complications might have a significant impact on the prevention and management of COVID-19, the disease caused upon infection with 2019-nCoV.

Ionic conductivity is an important separator parameter influencing the cycle life and rate capability of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). To improve the ionic conductivity of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVdF) fibers, polystyrene (PS) was added into the PVdF electrospinning solution for the fabrication of PVdF/PS hybrid fibers. The morphology and electrochemical property were regulating by tuning the PS dosage. Owing to the increasing mass ratio of the adhesion structure, not only the porosity, uptake, and average pore size of PVdF/PS hybrid fibers simultaneously decreased but also the mechanical strength enhanced (15.9 MPa) with the increasing PS content. In addition, the ionic conductivity increased with increasing PS content (1.58 mS cm−1 for PVdF/PS hybrid fiber with 20-wt% PS) ascribing to the increase of the amorphous region. Benefiting from the characteristic of PVdF, the as-prepared PVdF/PS hybrid fibers with non-flammability can significantly improve the LIBs safety. Significantly, the cells with PVdF/PS hybrid fibers (15-wt% PS) displayed satisfactory cycling performance (159.9 mAh g−1 at 0.2 C for 45 cycles after testing at 0.1 C for 5 cycles) and rate capability, indicating that PVdF/PS hybrid fibers are the promising separator candidates for the applications in LIBs.

Flap endonuclease 1 (FEN1) overexpression promotes breast cancer. We investigated the role of FEN1 in cisplatin resistance and the chemosensitizing effects of curcumin in breast cancer cells. We demonstrated that FEN1 overexpression promotes cisplatin resistance in breast cancer cells, and that FEN1 knockdown enhances cisplatin sensitivity. Curcumin down-regulated FEN1 expression in a dose-dependent manner. A combination of cisplatin and curcumin enhanced breast cancer cell sensitivity to cisplatin by down-regulating FEN1 expression in vitro and in vivo. Increased ERK phosphorylation contributed to cisplatin resistance and cisplatin-induced FEN1 overexpression in breast cancer cells. Inhibiting ERK phosphorylation stimulated the chemosensitizing effect of curcumin to cisplatin by targeting FEN1. These data reveal that FEN1 overexpression promotes cisplatin resistance, and suggest FEN1 could be a potential therapeutic target to relieve cisplatin resistance in breast cancer. We also demonstrated that curcumin sensitizes breast cancer cells to cisplatin through FEN1 down-regulation.

Although vaccination has been hugely successful in protecting birds against infection by the New castle disease virus (NDV), newly-emerged highly virulent strains have been found to overcome established immune protection and threaten the poultry industry. The need to improve the immunization efficacy is, therefore, urgent. Here, we tested the potential immunostimulatory adjuvant activity of the adenoviral-expressed recombinant chicken granulocyte monocyte colony stimulating factor (rchGM-CSF) in an inactivated Newcastle Disease Virus (NDV) vaccine. 126 commercial layer chicks, divided into six groups, were first vaccinated at day 7, followed by a subsequent boost and later an intramuscular challenge at day 21 and 35 respectively. rchGM-CSF expressed by adenovirus raised NDV-specific hemagglutinin-inhibition (HI) titers from 10 to 12 (log2) and significantly upregulated the production of interferon α/β/γ (IFN-α/β/γ), interleukin-4 (IL-4) and major histocompatibility complex II (MHC-II) in spleens. Crucially, chicks inoculated with the inactivated NDV vaccine plus the rchGM-CSF adjuvant displayed only mild clinical signs, lower tissue viral loads, fewer tissue lesions, and decreased mortality and viral shedding than those in the group immunized with the vaccine alone. Our present work has demonstrated that chicken GM-CSF may act as an enhancer in the orchestration of host immune responses induced by the inactivated NDV vaccine. The molecule, expressed by an adenovirus, has the potential to be used as an immune adjuvant to improve protection by NDV vaccination.