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Rechargeable aqueous zinc–metal batteries (AZBs) are a promising complimentary technology to the existing lithium‐ion batteries and the re‐emerging lithium–metal batteries to satisfy the increasing demands on energy storage. Despite considerable progress achieved in the past years, the fundamental understanding of the solid‐electrolyte interphase (SEI) formation and how its composition influences the SEI properties are limited. This review highlights the functionalities of anion‐tuned SEI on the reversibility of zinc–metal anode, with a specific emphasis on new structural insights obtained through advanced characterizations and computational techniques. Recent efforts in terms of key variables that govern the interfacial behaviors to improve the long‐term stability of zinc anode, i.e., Coulombic efficiency, plating morphology, dendrite formation, and side‐reactions, are comprehensively reviewed. Lastly, the remaining challenges and future perspectives are presented, providing insights into the rational design of practical high‐performance AZBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Orthodontic space closure of extraction sites can be initiated early, within 1-week post-extraction, or it can be delayed for a month or more. Objective This systematic review aimed to evaluate the effect of early versus delayed initiation of space closure after tooth extraction on the rate of orthodontic tooth movement. Search methods Unrestricted search of 10 electronic databases was conducted until September 2022. Selection criteria Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) investigating the initiation time of space closure of extraction sites in patients undergoing orthodontic treatment were included. Data collection and analysis Data items were extracted using a pre-piloted extraction form. The Cochrane's risk of bias tool (ROB 2.0) and the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation approach were used for quality assessment. Meta-analysis was undertaken if there are at least two trials reporting the same outcome. Results Eleven RCTs met the inclusion criteria. Meta-analysis revealed that early canine retraction resulted in a statistically significant higher rate of maxillary canine retraction when compared to delayed canine retraction [mean difference (MD); 0.17 mm/month, 95% CI: 0.06 to 0.28, P  = 0.003, 4 RCTs, moderate quality]. Duration of space closure was shorter in the early space closure group, but not statistically significant (MD; 1.11 months, 95% CI: −0.27 to 2.49, P  = 0.11, 2 RCTs, low quality). The incidence of gingival invaginations was not statistically different between early and delayed space closure groups (Odds ratio; 0.79, 95% CI: 0.27 to 2.29, 2 RCTs, P  = 0.66, very low quality). Qualitative synthesis found no statistically significant differences between the two groups regarding anchorage loss, root resorption, tooth tipping, and alveolar bone height. Conclusions Based on the available evidence, early traction within the first week after tooth extraction has a minimal clinically significant effect on the rate of tooth movement compared to delayed traction. Further high-quality RCTs with standardized time points and measurement methods are still needed. Registration PROSPERO (CRD42022346026). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) and periodontitis are two prevalent diseases with mutual influence. Accumulation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) in hyperglycemia may impair cell function and worsen periodontal conditions. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is an important post-transcriptional modification in RNAs that regulates cell fate determinant and progression of diseases. However, whether m6A methylation participates in the process of periodontitis with diabetes is unclear. Thus, we aimed to investigate the effects of AGEs on bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs), elucidate the m6A modification mechanism in diabetes-associated periodontitis. Methods: Periodontitis with diabetes were established by high-fat diet/streptozotocin injection and silk ligation. M6A modifications in alveolar bone were demonstrated by RNA immunoprecipitation sequence. BMSCs treated with AGEs, fat mass and obesity associated (FTO) protein knockdown and sclerostin (SOST) interference were evaluated by quantitative polymerase chain reaction, western blot, immunofluorescence, alkaline phosphatase and Alizarin red S staining. Results: Diabetes damaged alveolar bone regeneration was validated in vivo. In vitro experiments showed AGEs inhibited BMSCs osteogenesis and influenced the FTO expression and m6A level in total RNA. FTO knockdown increased the m6A levels and reversed the AGE-induced inhibition of BMSCs differentiation. Mechanically, FTO regulated m6A modification on SOST transcripts, and AGEs affected the binding of FTO to SOST transcripts. FTO knockdown accelerated the degradation of SOST mRNA in presence of AGEs. Interference with SOST expression in AGE-treated BMSCs partially rescued the osteogenesis by activating Wnt Signaling. Conclusions: AGEs impaired BMSCs osteogenesis by regulating SOST in an m6A-dependent manner, presenting a promising method for bone regeneration treatment of periodontitis with diabetes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Macrophage pyroptosis drives the secretion of IL-1β, which has been recently reported to be a featured salivary biomarker for discriminating periodontitis in the presence of diabetes. This study aimed to explore whether macrophage pyroptosis plays a role in the development of diabetes mellitus–periodontitis, as well as potential therapeutic strategies. By establishing a model of experimental diabetes mellitus–periodontitis in rats, we found that IL-1β and gasdermin D were highly expressed, leading to aggravated destruction of periodontal tissue. MCC950, a potent and selective molecule inhibitor of the NLRP3 inflammasome, effectively inhibited macrophage pyroptosis and attenuated alveolar bone losses in diabetes mellitus–periodontitis. Consistently, in vitro, high glucose could induce macrophage pyroptosis and thus promoted IL-1β production in macrophages stimulated by lipopolysaccharide. In addition, autophagy blockade by high glucose via the mTOR-ULK1 pathway led to severe oxidative stress response in macrophages stimulated by lipopolysaccharide. Activation of autophagy by rapamycin, clearance of mitochondrial ROS by mitoTEMPO, and inhibition of inflammasome by MCC950 could significantly reduce macrophage pyroptosis and IL-1β secretion. Our study demonstrates that hyperglycemia promotes IL-1β production and pyroptosis in macrophages suffered by periodontal microbial stimuli. Modulation of autophagy activity and specific targeting of the ROS-inflammasome pathway may offer promising therapeutic strategies to alleviate diabetes mellitus–periodontitis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate whether flash‐free adhesive ceramic brackets (FFA) have a better clinical performance than conventional adhesive ceramic brackets (CVA) in patients undergoing multi‐bracket orthodontic treatment. PubMed, CENTRAL, Web of Science, Scopus, Embase, CNKI and Grey‐literature were searched without restrictions up to January 2022. Both randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and controlled clinical trials (CCTs) were included. Risk of bias assessment was performed using the RoB 2.0 and ROBINS‐I cochrane risk of bias tools. Eight articles, for seven studies, were included in this systematic review, and four split‐mouth trials (SMT) were included in the meta‐analysis. A random‐effects meta‐analysis found a statistically significant faster bonding time with FFA (mean difference [MD] = −93.85 seconds/quadrant, P =.002, 2 SMT), and no statistically significant difference regarding bracket failure rate at 6 months (risk ratio [RR] = 1.05; P =.93, 3 SMT), adhesive removal time (MD = −18.26 seconds/quadrant, P =.50, 2 SMT), and amount of remnant adhesive (MD = −0.13/bracket, P =.72, 2 SMT) between FFA and CVA. No difference (P >.05, 3 SMT) was found in enamel demineralization and periodontal measurements. CVA showed a statistically significant higher debonding pain score (P =.004, 1 SMT). Both flash‐free and conventional adhesive ceramic brackets had a similar clinical performance, except for the faster bonding with FFA. Further, well‐designed clinical trials are still required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are critical in regenerating tissues because they can differentiate into various tissue cells. MSCs interact closely with cells in the tissue microenvironment during the repair of damaged tissue. Although regarded as non-healing wounds, tumors can be treated by MSCs, which showed satisfactory treatment outcomes in previous reports. However, it is largely unknown whether the biological behaviors of MSCs would be affected by the tumor microenvironment. Exploring the truth of tumor microenvironmental cues driving MSCs tumor "wound" regeneration would provide a deeper understanding of the biological behavior of MSCs. Therefore, we mimicked the tumor microenvironment using co-cultured glioma C6 cells and rat MSCs, aiming to assess the proliferation and migration of MSCs and the associated effects of Stat3 in this process. The results showed that co-cultured MSCs significantly exhibited enhanced tumorigenic, migratory, and proliferative abilities. Both up-regulation of Stat3 and down-regulation of miR-134-5p were detected in co-cultured MSCs. Furthermore, miR-134-5p directly regulated Stat3 by binding to the sequence complementary to microRNA response elements in the 3′-UTR of its mRNA. Functional studies showed that both the migration and proliferation abilities of co-cultured MSCs were inhibited by miR-134-5p, whereas Stat3 gain-of-function treatment reversed these effects. In addition, Pvt1 was confirmed to be regulated by miR-134-5p through Stat3 and the suppression of Pvt1 reduced the migration and proliferation abilities of co-cultured MSCs. To sum up, these results demonstrate a suppressive role of miR-134-5p in tumor-environment-driven malignant transformation of rat MSCs through directly targeting Stat3, highlighting a crucial role of loss-of-function of miR-134-5p/Stat3 axis in the malignant transformation, providing a reference to the potential clinic use of MSCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In mobile crowdsensing activities, it is usually necessary for participants to upload sensing data and related locations. The existing location privacy-preserving mechanisms cannot well protect a user's trajectory privacy because attackers can mine the user's trajectory features through data analysis techniques. Aiming at the trajectory privacy protection problem, this article proposes a differential location privacy-preserving mechanism based on trajectory obfuscation (LPMT). LPMT first extracts the stay points as the features of a trajectory based on the sliding window algorithm, and then obfuscates each stay point to a target obfuscation subregion through the exponential mechanism, and finally performs the Laplace sampling in the target obfuscation subregion to obtain the obfuscated GPS points. Compared with the baseline mechanisms, LPMT can reduce data quality loss by more than 20% while providing the same level of obfuscation quality, which indicates that LPMT has the advantages of strong security and high quality of service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Cerebral ischemia and intracranial hemorrhage are the two main phenotypes of moyamoya disease (MMD). However, the pathophysiological processes of these two MMD phenotypes are still largely unknown. Here, we aimed to use multimodal neuroimaging techniques to explore the brain structural and functional differences between the two MMD subtypes. Methods: We included 12 patients with ischemic MMD, 10 patients with hemorrhagic MMD, and 10 healthy controls (HCs). Each patient underwent MRI scans and cognitive assessment. The cortical thickness of two MMD subtypes and HC group were compared. Arterial spin labeling (ASL) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) were used to inspect the cerebral blood flow (CBF) of cortical regions and the integrity of related white matter fibers, respectively. Correlation analyses were then performed among the MRI metrics and cognitive function scores. Results: We found that only the cortical thickness in the right middle temporal gyrus (MTG) of hemorrhagic MMD was significantly greater than both ischemic MMD and HC (p < 0.05). In addition, the right MTG showed higher ASL-CBF, and its associated fiber tract (arcuate fasciculus, AF) exhibited higher fractional anisotropy (FA) values in hemorrhagic MMD. Furthermore, the cortical thickness of the right MTG was positively correlated with its ASL-CBF values (r = 0.37, p = 0.046) and the FA values of right AF (r = 0.67, p < 0.001). At last, the FA values of right AF were found to be significantly correlated with cognitive performances within patients with MMD. Conclusions: Hemorrhagic MMD shows increased cortical thickness on the right MTG in comparison with ischemic MMD and HCs. The increased cortical thickness is associated with the higher CBF values and the increased integrity of the right AF. These findings are important to understand the clinical symptoms and pathophysiology of MMD and further applied to clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Globally, major depressive disorder (MDD) is considered to be a leading cause of disability. In this article, we aim to investigate the sex difference in global burden of MDD by year, age, and socioeconomic development, utilizing disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs). Methods: Global and national sex-specific DALY estimates caused by MDD from 1990 to 2019 and in different age groups were obtained from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2019. Human development index (HDI) was used as an indicator of national socioeconomic development. Spearman correlation and linear regression analyses were performed to explore the relationship between national socioeconomic development and sex difference in MDD burden. Results: Sex difference in global burden of MDD persisted between 1990 and 2019, with age-standardized DALY rates being 352 among males vs. 593 among females in 1990 and 354 vs. 564 in 2019. Females had higher burden of MDD than males at the same age. Disability-adjusted life-years numbers and rates among both sexes rapidly increased with age for those aged 10–24 years, along with gradually enlarging sex difference. Age-standardized DALY rates among females were higher than that among males for each HDI-based country group (P < 0.001). National age-standardized DALY rates among both sexes were negatively related to HDI. However, female-to-male age-standardized DALY rate ratios were positively associated with HDI (Spearman r = 0.383, P < 0.001; standardized β = 0.300, P < 0.001). Conclusion: Although some improvement in sex difference in global burden of MDD has been achieved, it still persists in the past three decades, with females bearing more burden than males. To reduce sex difference in global MDD burden, more attention should be paid to young people and people in developed countries. The findings highlight the importance of making sex-specific health policy to manage mental impairment caused by MDD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]