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Background: Individuals with both type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and hypertension have an increased risk of cognitive impairment (CI) compared to those with either T2DM or hypertension. Therefore, this study aims to identify the prevalence of CI and its associated factors in T2DM patients with hypertension in Hunan, China., Methods: This cross-sectional study included T2DM patients with hypertension admitted to the Department of Endocrinology of Yuanjiang People's Hospital in Hunan Province from July 2022 to February 2023. Data on sociodemographic, lifestyle, disease-related characteristics, and cognitive function were collected through face-to-face interviews. Cognitive function was assessed using the Mini-Mental State Examination. Backward stepwise multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors associated with CI. The predictive power was examined using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve., Results: A total of 475 participants were included. The prevalence of CI was 38.9% (95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 34.5%-43.3%). Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that advanced age (odds ratio [OR]=3.21, 95% CI: 1.74-5.93), elementary school or below (OR=3.51, 95% CI: 1.19-10.31), per capita monthly household income ≤2000 RMB (OR=5.29, 95% CI: 2.66-10.51), not current reading books or newspapers (OR=4.48, 95% CI: 1.26-15.99), not current playing cards or mahjong (OR=3.52, 95% CI: 1.91-6.47), current average time of physical activity ≤30 minutes per day (OR=8.66, 95% CI: 4.65-16.12), diabetic nephropathy (OR=1.95, 95% CI: 1.05-3.61) and stroke (OR=7.41, 95% CI: 3.41-16.11) were associated with a higher risk of CI in T2DM patients with hypertension. The area under the ROC curve of this model was 0.925 (95% CI: 0.902-0.949)., Conclusions: The prevalence of CI was high in T2DM patients with hypertension in Hunan, China. Age, educational level, household income, current reading books or newspapers status, current playing cards or mahjong status, current average time of physical activity per day, diabetic nephropathy, and stroke were associated with CI in T2DM patients with hypertension., 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 Liu, Feng, Zhang, Liu, Xiong, Chen, Yang, Wu, Shi and Dai.)

Aboveground biomass (AGB) is a key indicator of crop nutrition and growth status. Accurately and timely obtaining biomass information is essential for crop yield prediction in precision management systems. Remote sensing methods play a key role in monitoring crop biomass. However, the saturation effect makes it challenging for spectral indices to accurately reflect crop changes at higher biomass levels. It is well established that rapeseed biomass during different growth stages is closely related to phenotypic traits. This study aims to explore the potential of using optical and phenotypic metrics to estimate rapeseed AGB. Vegetation indices (VI), texture features (TF), and structural features (SF) were extracted from UAV hyperspectral and ultra-high-resolution RGB images to assess their correlation with rapeseed biomass at different growth stages. Deep neural network (DNN), random forest (RF), and support vector regression (SVR) were employed to estimate rapeseed AGB. We compared the accuracy of various feature combinations and evaluated model performance at different growth stages. The results indicated strong correlations between rapeseed AGB at the three growth stages and the corresponding indices. The estimation model incorporating VI, TF, and SF showed higher accuracy in estimating rapeseed AGB compared to models using individual feature sets. Furthermore, the DNN model (R 2 = 0.878, RMSE = 447.02 kg/ha) with the combined features outperformed both the RF (R 2 = 0.812, RMSE = 530.15 kg/ha) and SVR (R 2 = 0.781, RMSE = 563.24 kg/ha) models. Among the growth stages, the bolting stage yielded slightly higher estimation accuracy than the seedling and early blossoming stages. The optimal model combined DNN with VI, TF, and SF features. These findings demonstrate that integrating hyperspectral and RGB data with advanced artificial intelligence models, particularly DNN, provides an effective approach for estimating rapeseed AGB., 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 Sun, Zhang, Zhao, Wu, Liang, Ren, Cao and Zou.)

Introduction: NBS-LRR genes (NLRs) are the most extensive category of plant resistance genes (R genes) and play a crucial role in pathogen defense. Understanding the diversity and evolutionary dynamics of NLRs in different plant species is essential for improving disease resistance. This study investigates the NLR gene family in eight diploid wild strawberry species to explore their structural characteristics, evolutionary relationships, and potential for enhancing disease resistance., Methods: We conducted a comprehensive genome-wide identification and structural analysis of NLRs across eight diploid wild strawberry species. Phylogenetic analysis was performed to examine the relationships between TIR-NLRs (TNLs), Non-TIR-NLRs (non-TNLs), CC-NLRs (CNLs), and RPW8-NLRs (RNLs). Gene structures were compared, and gene expression was profiled across different NLR subfamilies. Additionally, in vitro leaf inoculation assays with Botrytis cinerea were performed to assess the resistance of various strawberry species., Results: Our analysis revealed that non-TNLs constitute over 50% of the NLR gene family in all eight strawberry species, surpassing the proportion of TNLs. Phylogenetic analysis showed that TNLs diverged into two subclades: one grouping with CNLs and the other closely related to RNLs. A significantly higher number of non-TNLs were under positive selection compared to TNLs, indicating their rapid diversification. Gene structure analysis demonstrated that non-TNLs have shorter gene structures than TNLs and exhibit higher expression levels, particularly RNLs. Notably, non-TNLs showed dominant expression under both normal and infected conditions. In vitro leaf inoculation assays revealed that Fragaria pentaphylla and Fragaria nilgerrensis , which have the highest proportion of non-TNLs, exhibited significantly greater resistance to Botrytis cinerea compared to Fragaria vesca , which has the lowest proportion of non-TNLs., Discussion: The findings of this study provide important insights into the evolutionary dynamics of NLRs in strawberries, particularly the significant role of non-TNLs in pathogen defense. The rapid diversification and higher expression levels of non-TNLs suggest their potential contribution to enhanced disease resistance. This research highlights the value of non-TNLs in strawberry breeding programs aimed at improving resistance to pathogens such as Botrytis cinerea ., 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 Zhu, Feng, Shi, Zhang, Yuan and Qiao.)

Introduction: With the development of globalization and the increasing importance of English in international communication, effectively improving English writing skills has become a key focus in language learning. Traditional methods for English writing guidance and error correction have predominantly relied on rule-based approaches or statistical models, such as conventional language models and basic machine learning algorithms. While these methods can aid learners in improving their writing quality to some extent, they often suffer from limitations such as inflexibility, insufficient contextual understanding, and an inability to handle multimodal information. These shortcomings restrict their effectiveness in more complex linguistic environments., Methods: To address these challenges, this study introduces ETG-ALtrans, a multimodal robot-assisted English writing guidance and error correction technology based on an improved ALBEF model and VGG19 architecture, enhanced by reinforcement learning. The approach leverages VGG19 to extract visual features and integrates them with the ALBEF model, achieving precise alignment and fusion of images and text. This enhances the model's ability to comprehend context. Furthermore, by incorporating reinforcement learning, the model can adaptively refine its correction strategies, thereby optimizing the effectiveness of writing guidance., Results and Discussion: Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed ETG-ALtrans method significantly improves the accuracy of English writing error correction and the intelligence level of writing guidance in multimodal data scenarios. Compared to traditional methods, this approach not only enhances the precision of writing suggestions but also better caters to the personalized needs of learners, thereby effectively improving their writing skills. This research is of significant importance in the field of language learning technology and offers new perspectives and methodologies for the development of future English writing assistance tools., Competing Interests: The author declares 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 Wang.)

Introduction: Repeated measures microbiome studies, including longitudinal and clustered designs, offer valuable insights into the dynamics of microbial communities and their associations with various health outcomes. However, visualizing such multivariate data poses significant challenges, particularly in distinguishing meaningful biological patterns from noise introduced by covariates and the complexities of repeated measures., Methods: In this study, we propose a framework to enhance the visualization of repeated measures microbiome data using Principal Coordinates Analysis (PCoA) adjusted for covariates through linear mixed models (LMM). Our method adjusts for confounding variables and accounts for the repeated measures structure of the data, enabling clearer identification of microbial community variations across time points or clusters., Results: We demonstrate the utility of our approach through simulated scenarios and real datasets, showing that it effectively mitigates the influence of nuisance covariates and highlights key axes of microbiome variation., Discussion: This refined visualization technique provides a robust tool for researchers to explore and understand microbial community dynamics in repeated measures microbiome studies., 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. The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision., (Copyright © 2024 Little, Deek, Zhang, Zhao, Ling and Wu.)

With the advancement of computer vision technology, vision-based target perception has emerged as a predominant approach for harvesting robots to identify and locate fruits. However, little attention has been paid to the fact that fruits may be obscured by stems or other objects. In order to improve the vision detection ability of fruit harvesting robot, a fruit target selection and location approach considering obstacle perception was proposed. To enrich the dataset for tomato harvesting, synthetic data were generated by rendering a 3D simulated model of the tomato greenhouse environment, and automatically producing corresponding pixel-level semantic segmentation labels. An attention-based spatial-relationship feature extraction module (SFM) with lower computational complexity was designed to enhance the ability of semantic segmentation network DeepLab v3+ in accurately segmenting linear-structured obstructions such as stems and wires. An adaptive K-means clustering method was developed to distinguish individual instances of fruits. Furthermore, a barrier-free fruit selection algorithm that integrates information of obstacles and fruit instances was proposed to identify the closest and largest non-occluded fruit as the optimal picking target. The improved semantic segmentation network exhibited enhanced performance, achieving an accuracy of 96.75%. Notably, the Intersection-over-Union ( IoU ) of wire and stem classes was improved by 5.0% and 2.3%, respectively. Our target selection method demonstrated accurate identification of obstacle types (96.15%) and effectively excluding fruits obstructed by strongly resistant objects (86.67%). Compared to the fruit detection method without visual obstacle avoidance (Yolo v5), our approach exhibited an 18.9% increase in selection precision and a 1.3% reduction in location error. The improved semantic segmentation algorithm significantly increased the segmentation accuracy of linear-structured obstacles, and the obstacle perception algorithm effectively avoided occluded fruits. The proposed method demonstrated an appreciable ability in precisely selecting and locating barrier-free fruits within non-structural environments, especially avoiding fruits obscured by stems or wires. This approach provides a more reliable and practical solution for fruit selection and localization for harvesting robots, while also being applicable to other fruits and vegetables such as sweet peppers and kiwis., 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 Zhou, Hu, Cheng, Zhang, Zhang, Lu, Wu and Ren.)

Objective: Epilepsy-related stigma is a global problem, yet there has been an inadequate focus on children and adolescents. The purpose of this study was to determine the status quo of stigma and its determinants among children and adolescents with epilepsy in China., Methods: A multicenter cross-sectional study was conducted across nine hospitals in eight cities within six provinces in China from 10 October 2023 to 15 June 2024. Participants included patients aged 8 to 18 years with epilepsy and their caregivers. Felt stigma was assessed with the Kilifi Stigma Scale for Epilepsy (KSSE). Social support and self-efficacy were collected through the Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS) and the Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES). The data were analyzed using t-tests, analysis of variance (ANOVA), Spearman correlation analysis, and multiple linear regression analysis., Results: The study enrolled 281 children and adolescents, with a mean age of 12.25 years (SD = 2.56), including 46.6% females. A total of 35.6% participants had self-reported felt stigma. The mean KSSE score is 9.58 (SD = 7.11). Meanwhile, stigma scores correlated strongly with reduced social support (r = -0.55, p  < 0.01) and self-efficacy (r = -0.43, p < 0.01). Place of residence (rural vs. non-rural), academic performance (average and above vs. fair or poor), region (western region vs. non-western region), duration of epilepsy (≤5 years vs. >5 years), drug-resistant epilepsy (yes vs. no), comorbidities (yes vs. no), social support and self-efficacy are major influencing factors among the complex factors influencing the felt stigma among children and adolescents., Conclusion: Medical staff should be more aware of stigma among children and adolescents with epilepsy, especially those who live in rural and western areas, have poor academic performance, have epilepsy duration of more than 5 years, have drug-resistant epilepsy, and have comorbidities, who are at higher risk of stigma. It is recommended that effective measures be taken to alleviate stigma by improving children and adolescents' self-efficacy and providing more social support for them and their families., 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 Zhao, Li, Zhang, Cui, Wang, Fan, Zeng and Xie.)

Background: Mobile phone addiction (MPA) greatly affects the biological clock and sleep quality and is emerging as a behavioral disorder. The saliva microbiota has been linked to circadian rhythms, and our previous research revealed dysrhythmic saliva metabolites in MPA subjects with sleep disorders (MPASD). In addition, acupuncture had positive effects. However, the dysbiotic saliva microbiota in MPASD patients and the restorative effects of acupuncture are unclear., Objectives: To probe the circadian dysrhythmic characteristics of the saliva microbiota and acupunctural restoration in MPASD patients., Methods: MPASD patients and healthy volunteers were recruited by the Mobile Phone Addiction Tendency Scale (MPATS) and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Saliva samples were collected every 4 h for 72 h. After saliva sampling, six MPDSD subjects (group M) were acupuncturally treated (group T), and subsequent saliva sampling was conducted posttreatment. Finally, all the samples were subjected to 16S rRNA gene sequencing and bioinformatic analysis., Results: Significantly increased MPATS and PSQI scores were observed in MPDSD patients (p< 0.01), but these scores decreased (p<0.001) after acupuncture intervention. Compared with those in healthy controls, the diversity and structure of the saliva microbiota in MPASD patients were markedly disrupted. Six genera with circadian rhythms were detected in all groups, including Sulfurovum , Peptostreptococcus , Porphyromonas and Prevotella . There were five genera with circadian rhythmicity in healthy people, of which the rhythmicities of the genera Rothia and Lautropia disappeared in MPASD patients but effectively resumed after acupuncture intervention., Conclusions: This work revealed dysrhythmic salivary microbes in MPASD patients, and acupuncture, as a potential intervention, could be effective in mitigating this ever-rising behavioral epidemic., 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 Mei, Yang, Zhang, Jin, Yang, Yang, Zheng, Pang, Gong, Zhou, Zuo and Ding.)

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one of the most common pathogens causing hemorrhagic pneumonia in Chinese forest musk deer. Multidrug-resistant P. aeruginosa is frequently isolated from the lungs of affected musk deer in Shaanxi Province, China. With the increasing bacterial drug resistance, commonly used antibiotics have shown limited efficacy against drug-resistant P. aeruginosa . Therefore, phages have garnered attention as a promising alternative to antibiotics among researchers. In this study, phages vB&#95;PaeP&#95;YL1 and vB&#95;PaeP&#95;YL2 (respectively referred to as YL1 and YL2) were isolated from mixed sewage samples from a farm. YL1 and YL2 exhibit an icosahedral head and a non-contractile short tail, belonging to the Podoviridae family. Identification results demonstrate good tolerance to low temperatures and pH levels, with minimal variation in potency within 30 min of UV irradiation. The MOI for both YL1 and YL2 was 0.1, and their one-step growth curve latent periods were 10 min and 20 min, respectively. Moreover, both single phage and phage cocktail effectively inhibited the growth of the host bacteria in vitro , with the phage cocktail showing superior inhibitory effects compared to the single phage. YL1 and YL2 possess double-stranded DNA genomes, with YL1 having a genome size of 72,187 bp and a total G + C content of 55.02%, while YL2 has a genome size of 72,060 bp and a total G + C content of 54.98%. YL1 and YL2 are predicted to have 93 and 92 open reading frames (ORFs), respectively, and no ORFs related to drug resistance or lysogeny were found in both phages. Genome annotation and phylogenetic analysis revealed that YL1 is closely related to vB&#95;PaeP&#95;FBPa1 (ON857943), while YL2 is closely related to vB&#95;PaeP&#95;FBPa1 (ON857943) and Phage26 (NC041907). In a mouse model of hemorrhagic pneumonia, phage cocktail treatment showed better control of the disease and significantly reduced lung bacterial load compared to single phage treatment. Therefore, YL1 and YL2 have the potential for the prevention and treatment of multidrug-resistant P. aeruginosa infections., 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 Zhang, Wang, Hu, Lv, Zhang, Yang, Zhou and Wang.)

Introduction: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is partially inheritable while its mechanism is still uncertain., Methods: This cross-sectional study focused on gene pathways as a whole rather than polymorphisms of single genes. Deep sequencing and gene enrichment analysis based on pathways in Reactome database were obtained to reveal gene mutations., Results: A total of 117 patients with MDD and 78 healthy controls were enrolled. The Digestion and Dietary Carbohydrate pathway (Carbohydrate pathway) was determined to contain 100% mutations in patients with MDD and 0 mutation in matched healthy controls., Discussion: Findings revealed in the current study enable a better understanding of gene pathways mutations status in MDD patients, indicating a possible genetic mechanism of MDD development and a potential diagnostic or therapeutic target., 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 Zhang, Li, Dong, Hu, Zhong, Gong and Kuang.)

Introduction: Insomnia, a common clinical disorder, significantly impacts the physical and mental well-being of patients. Currently, available hypnotic medications are unsatisfactory due to adverse reactions and dependency, necessitating the identification of new drug targets for the treatment of insomnia., Methods: In this study, we utilized 734 plasma proteins as genetic instruments obtained from genome-wide association studies to conduct a Mendelian randomization analysis, with insomnia as the outcome variable, to identify potential drug targets for insomnia. Additionally, we validated our results externally using other datasets. Sensitivity analyses entailed reverse Mendelian randomization analysis, Bayesian co-localization analysis, and phenotype scanning. Furthermore, we constructed a protein-protein interaction network to elucidate potential correlations between the identified proteins and existing targets., Results: Mendelian randomization analysis indicated that elevated levels of TGFBI (OR = 1.01; 95% CI, 1.01-1.02) and PAM ((OR = 1.01; 95% CI, 1.01-1.02) in plasma are associated with an increased risk of insomnia, with external validation supporting these findings. Moreover, there was no evidence of reverse causality for these two proteins. Co-localization analysis confirmed that PAM (coloc.abf-PPH4 = 0.823) shared the same variant with insomnia, further substantiating its potential role as a therapeutic target. There are interactive relationships between the potential proteins and existing targets of insomnia., Conclusion: Overall, our findings suggested that elevated plasma levels of TGFBI and PAM are connected with an increased risk of insomnia and might be promising therapeutic targets, particularly PAM. However, further exploration is necessary to fully understand the underlying mechanisms involved., 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 Yang, Shi, Xu, Ren, Lv, Li and Qi.)

Global climate change has altered the frequency of soil freeze-thaw cycles, but the response of soil microorganisms to different elevation gradients during the early freeze-thaw period remains unclear. So far, the influence of the altitudinal gradient on the microbial community and metabolic characteristics in the early freeze-thaw period of the Qinghai Lake Basin remains unclear. To this end, we collected soil at different elevations in the early freeze-thaw period of the Qinghai Lake Basin and investigated the influence of the elevation gradient on soil microbial community characteristics and soil metabolic processes as well as the corresponding environmental driving mechanism by high-throughput sequencing and LC-MS (Liquid Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer) nontargeted metabolite determination. The results showed that Proteobacteria were the dominant microflora in the Qinghai Lake Basin. The dominant phyla associated with carbon and nitrogen are Proteobacteria and Firmicutes, both of which are significantly affected by elevation. The soil physicochemical factors jointly affected the soil microbial communities and metabolism. Total phosphorus nitrate nitrogen and pH were the main driving factors of the microbial community, and metabolites were sensitive to changes in chemical factors. In short, the microbial community structure and function, soil physicochemical factors and soil metabolic processes were significantly affected by the altitudinal gradient in the early freeze-thaw period, while the microbial community diversity showed no significant response to the altitudinal gradient. Additionally, a high potassium content in the soil may promote the growth and reproduction of bacteria associated with carbon and nitrogen cycling, as well as the production of metabolites., 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 Zhang, Chen, Wu, Jiang, Du, Chen, Wang, Qi and Yang.)

Background: For nonmoyamoya patients with anterior cerebral artery (ACA) stenosis or occlusion, whether direct revascularization of the ACA territory can prevent stroke is still unclear. The objective of this study was to investigate the efficacy and safety of a parietal branch of superficial temporal artery-interposed superficial temporal artery-to-ACA bypass (PISAB) for preventing stroke in patients with symptomatic atherosclerotic ACA stenosis or occlusion (SAASO)., Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the data from patients with SAASO who had undergone PISAB in our center between April 2016 and November 2021. The rates of patency, satisfaction (revascularization grades A and B) of bypass, perioperative complications, recurrence of ischemic stroke, changes in bypass flow, and improvements in cerebral blood perfusion were analyzed., Results: A total of 19 SAASO patients were involved in this study. Sixteen out of 19 (84.2%) patients were free from any cerebral ischemic events after surgery. Only 3 patients (15.8%) had recurrent stroke postoperatively. Two (10.5%) surgery-related complications occurred, including hyperperfusion syndrome and minor stroke. No skin ischemic complications occurred. The average follow-up period was 50.6 ± 18.3 months. The flow rate of the bypass was significantly increased half a year after surgery (56.2 ± 8.0 mL/min vs. 44.3 ± 5.3 mL/min, p  < 0.001). The ratio of ipsilateral/contralateral mean transit time in the superior frontal gyrus was decreased significantly after bypass (1.08 ± 0.07 vs. 1.23 ± 0.05, p  < 0.001) and continued to decrease 6 months after surgery (1.05 ± 0.04 vs. 1.08 ± 0.07, p  = 0.002). The patency rate of PISAB was 94.7% (18/19) 2 years after surgery. The satisfaction rate of bypass was 89.5% (17/19)., Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that PISAB, as a safe superficial bypass, can effectively reduce the risk of stroke in SAASO patients. More precise conclusions will require randomized control studies., 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 Tai, Ling, Huang, Zhang, Yang, Wei, Wu, Mo, Wang and Chen.)

Driven by the good developmental potential and favorable environment at this stage, Ganoderma lucidum is recognized as a precious large fungus with medicinal and nutritional health care values. Among them, polysaccharides, triterpenoids, oligosaccharides, trace elements, etc. are important bioactive components in G. lucidum . These bioactive components will have an impact on gut flora, thus alleviating diseases such as hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia and obesity caused by gut flora disorder. While numerous studies have demonstrated the ability of G. lucidum and its active components to regulate gut flora, a systematic review of this mechanism is currently lacking. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the regulatory effects of G. lucidum and its active components on gut flora in cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and renal metabolic diseases, and summarize the research progress of G. lucidum active components in improving related diseases by regulating gut flora. Additionally, review delves into the principle by which G. lucidum and its active components can treat or assist treat diseases by regulating gut flora. The research progress of G. lucidum in intestinal tract and its potential in medicine, health food and clinical application were fully explored for researchers., 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 Qin, Fang, Zhang, Zhao, Zheng and Wang.)

The formation of soil in karst ecosystem has always been a scientific problem of great concern to human beings. Algae can grow on the exposed and non-nutrition carbonate surface, inducing and accelerating weathering of rock substrates, thus promoting soil formation. Yet the actual contribution of algae to solutional weathering intensity remains unclear. In this study, we performed weathering simulation experiment on two algae species ( Klebsormidium dissectum (F.Gay) H.Ettl & G.Gärtner and Chlorella vulgaris Beijerinck), which were screened from carbonated rock surfaces from a typical karst region in South China. The results showed: (1) both algae have solutional weathering effect on carbonate rock, (2) there is no difference of solutional intensity observed, yet the solutional modes are different, suggesting different ecological adaptative strategies, (3) algae on carbonate rocks have higher carbonic anhydrase activity (CAA) and secrete more extracellular polysaccharide (EPS), accelerating rock weathering. (4) The absolute dissolution amount of carbonate rock with algae participation is 3 times of that of without algae. These results indicate the significant impact of terrestrial algae on carbonate rock solutional weathering and provides quantitative evidence that terrestrial algae are pioneer species. It also contributes to our further understanding of soil formation in karst ecosystems in South China., 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 Yan, Zhao, Xiong, Yang, Li and Chen.)

Background: Physical weakness and cardiovascular risk increase significantly with age, but the underlying biological mechanisms remain largely unknown. This study aims to reveal the causal effect of circulating metabolites on frailty, sarcopenia and vascular aging related traits and diseases through a two-sample Mendelian Randomization (MR) analysis. Methods: Exposures were 486 metabolites analyzed in a genome-wide association study (GWAS), while outcomes included frailty, sarcopenia, arterial stiffness, atherosclerosis, peripheral vascular disease (PAD) and aortic aneurysm. Primary causal estimates were calculated using the inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method. Methods including MR Egger, weighted median, Q-test, and leave-one-out analysis were used for the sensitive analysis. Results: A total of 125 suggestive causative associations between metabolites and outcomes were identified. Seven strong causal links were ultimately identified between six metabolites (kynurenine, pentadecanoate (15:0), 1-arachidonoylglycerophosphocholine, androsterone sulfate, glycine and mannose) and three diseases (sarcopenia, PAD and atherosclerosis). Besides, metabolic pathway analysis identified 13 significant metabolic pathways in 6 age-related diseases. Furthermore, the metabolite-gene interaction networks were constructed. Conclusion: Our research suggested new evidence of the relationship between identified metabolites and 6 age-related diseases, which may hold promise as valuable biomarkers., 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 Qian, Huang, Zhang, Yang, Fang, Zhang and Zhang.)

A central goal of biology is to understand how genetic variation produces phenotypic variation, which has been described as a genotype to phenotype (G to P) map. The plant form is continuously shaped by intrinsic developmental and extrinsic environmental inputs, and therefore plant phenomes are highly multivariate and require comprehensive approaches to fully quantify. Yet a common assumption in plant phenotyping efforts is that a few pre-selected measurements can adequately describe the relevant phenome space. Our poor understanding of the genetic basis of root system architecture is at least partially a result of this incongruence. Root systems are complex 3D structures that are most often studied as 2D representations measured with relatively simple univariate traits. In prior work, we showed that persistent homology, a topological data analysis method that does not pre-suppose the salient features of the data, could expand the phenotypic trait space and identify new G to P relations from a commonly used 2D root phenotyping platform. Here we extend the work to entire 3D root system architectures of maize seedlings from a mapping population that was designed to understand the genetic basis of maize-nitrogen relations. Using a panel of 84 univariate traits, persistent homology methods developed for 3D branching, and multivariate vectors of the collective trait space, we found that each method captures distinct information about root system variation as evidenced by the majority of non-overlapping QTL, and hence that root phenotypic trait space is not easily exhausted. The work offers a data-driven method for assessing 3D root structure and highlights the importance of non-canonical phenotypes for more accurate representations of the G to P map., 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 Li, Liu, Jiang, Laws, Tiskevich, Moose and Topp.)

Introduction: Ethylene (ET) is involved in plant responses to viral infection. However, its molecular mechanisms and regulatory network remain largely unknown., Methods and Results: In the present study, we report that cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV) in watermelon ( Citrullus lanatus ) triggers ET production by inducing the expression of ClACO5 , a key gene of the ET biosynthesis pathway through transcriptome data analysis and gene function validation. The knock-down of ClACO5 expression through virus-induced gene silencing in watermelon and overexpressing ClACO5 in transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana indicated that ClACO5 positively regulates CGMMV resistance and ET biosynthesis. The salicylic acid-responsive transcription factor gene ClWRKY70 shares a similar expression pattern with ClACO5 . We demonstrate that ClWRKY70 directly binds to the W-box cis -element in the ClACO5 promoter and enhances its transcription. In addition, ClWRKY70 enhances plant responses to CGMMV infection by regulating ClACO5 expression in watermelon., Discussion: Our results demonstrate that the ClWRKY70 - ClACO5 module positively regulates resistance to CGMMV infection in watermelon, shedding new light on the molecular basis of ET accumulation in watermelon in response to CGMMV infection., 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 Liu, Kang, Wu, Peng, Liu, Hong and Gu.)

The liver serves as a vital regulatory hub for various physiological processes, including sugar, protein, and fat metabolism, coagulation regulation, immune system maintenance, hormone inactivation, urea metabolism, and water-electrolyte acid-base balance control. These functions rely on coordinated communication among different liver cell types, particularly within the liver's fundamental hepatic lobular structure. In the early stages of liver development, diverse liver cells differentiate from stem cells in a carefully orchestrated manner. Despite its susceptibility to damage, the liver possesses a remarkable regenerative capacity, with the hepatic lobule serving as a secure environment for cell division and proliferation during liver regeneration. This regenerative process depends on a complex microenvironment, involving liver resident cells, circulating cells, secreted cytokines, extracellular matrix, and biological forces. While hepatocytes proliferate under varying injury conditions, their sources may vary. It is well-established that hepatocytes with regenerative potential are distributed throughout the hepatic lobules. However, a comprehensive spatiotemporal model of liver regeneration remains elusive, despite recent advancements in genomics, lineage tracing, and microscopic imaging. This review summarizes the spatial distribution of cell gene expression within the regenerative microenvironment and its impact on liver regeneration patterns. It offers valuable insights into understanding the complex process of liver regeneration., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Hu, Wang, An, Li, Wang, Cao, Li, Liu and Wang.)

Background: Recent evidence has shown that the long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) rPvt1 is elevated in septic myocardial tissues and that its knockdown attenuates sepsis-induced myocardial injury. However, the mechanism underlying the role of rPvt1 in septic myocardial dysfunction has not been elucidated. Methods: In this study, we performed transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic assays and conducted an integrated multi-omics analysis to explore the association between rPvt1 and lipopolysaccharide (Lipopolysaccharide)-induced H9C2 cardiomyocyte injury. LncRNA rPvt1 silencing was achieved using a lentiviral transduction system. Results: Compared to those with the negative control, rPvt1 knockdown led to large changes in the transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome. Specifically, 2,385 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), 272 differentially abundant proteins and 75 differentially expressed metabolites (DEMs) were identified through each omics analysis, respectively. Gene Ontology functional annotation, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes, Nr, eukaryotic orthologous groups, and Clusters of Orthologous Groups of Proteins pathway analyses were performed on these differentially expressed/abundant factors. The results suggested that mitochondrial energy metabolism might be closely related to the mechanism through which Pvt1 functions. Conclusion: These genes, proteins, metabolites, and their related dysregulated pathways could thus be promising targets for studies investigating the rPvt1-regluatory mechanisms involved in septic myocardial dysfunction, which is important for formulating novel strategies for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of septic myocardial injury., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Zhang, Wen, Yang, Yang and Liu.)

Drought is one of the major abiotic stresses limiting agricultural production, particularly for shallow-rooted plants like Pinellia ternata . It damages plants via oxidative burst, but this effect could be mitigated by catalase (CAT). However, no studies have been reported on CAT homologs in P. ternata , a drought-sensitive plant species. In the present study, a novel CAT gene, PtCAT2 , was functionally characterized via overexpression in Arabidopsis and analysis of cis-elements in its promoter. The isolated CAT gene was 1479 bp and encoded a protein containing 242 amino acids. The protein contains the CAT activity motif and the heme-binding site of a typical CAT, and the subcellular analysis indicated that the protein localizes at the cytoplasm and membrane. Moreover, the quantitative real-time reverse transcription PCR indicated that PtCAT2 is expressed ubiquitously in P. ternata and is strongly induced by drought stress and abscisic acid (ABA) signals. PtCAT2 overexpression enhanced the drought tolerance of Arabidopsis , as shown by the 30% increase in plant survival and a five-fold- increase in CAT activity. Moreover, PtCAT2 -transgenic plants increased superoxide dismutase and peroxidase activities and reduced malondialdehyde, membrane leakage, and hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) ( P <0.05). Furthermore, PtCAT2 -transgenic plants showed higher tolerance to oxidative stress caused by exogenous H 2 O 2 and retained higher chlorophyll and water contents than the WT. The mitochondria function was better maintained as presented by the higher oxygen consumption rate in transgenics under drought stress ( P <0.05). The endogenous CATs and drought response-related genes were also upregulated in transgenic lines under drought stress, indicating that PtCAT2 confers drought stress tolerance by enhancing the H 2 O 2 scavenging ability of plants to maintain their membrane integrity. These results improve our understanding of the drought response mechanisms and provide a potential breeding strategy for P. ternata genetic improvement., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Xu, Du, Dong, Zhang, Xue, Zhao, Zhao, Duan and Xue.)

Legal prediction presents one of the most significant challenges when applying artificial intelligence (AI) to the legal field. The legal system is a complex adaptive system characterized by the ambiguity of legal language and the diversity of value functions. The imprecision and procedural knowledge inherent in law makes judicial issues difficult to be expressed in a computer symbol system. Current semantic processing and machine learning technologies cannot fully capture the complex nature of legal relations, thereby raising doubts about the accuracy of legal predictions and reliability of judicial models. Cognitive computing, designed to emulate human brain functions and aid in enhancing decision-making processes, offers a better understanding of legal data and the processes of legal reasoning. This paper discusses the advancements made in cognitive methods applied to legal concept learning, semantic extraction, judicial data processing, legal reasoning, understanding of judicial bias, and the interpretability of judicial models. The integration of cognitive neuroscience with law has facilitated several constructive attempts, indicating that the evolution of cognitive law could be the next frontier in the intersection of AI and legal practice., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Zhang and Zhang.)

Introduction: The tea green leafhopper, Empoasca ( Matsumurasca ) onukii Matsuda, R., 1952 (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae), is currently one of the most devastating pests in the Chinese tea industry. The long-term use of chemical pesticides has a negative impact on human health, impeding the healthy and sustainable development of the tea industry in this region. Therefore, there is a need for non-chemical insecticides to control E. onukii in tea plants. The essential oils from plants have been identified for their potential insecticidal ability; however, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the effect of plant essential oils on E. onukii and its gene expression. Methods: In order to address these knowledge gaps, the components of Pogostemon cablin and Cinnamomum camphora essential oils were analyzed in the present study using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The fumigation toxicity of two essential oils on E. onukii was tested using sealed conical flasks. In addition, We performed comparative transcriptome analyses of E. onukii treated with or without P. cablin essential oil. Results: The 36-h lethal concentration (LC 50 ) values for E. onukii treated with P. cablin and C. camphora essential oils were 0.474 and 1.204 μL mL -1 respectively. Both essential oils exhibited the potential to control E. onukii , but the fumigation activity of P. cablin essential oil was more effective. A total of 2,309 differentially expressed genes were obtained by transcriptome sequencing of E. onukii treated with P. cablin essential oil. Conclusion: Many of differentially expressed genes were found to contain detoxifification genes, indicating that these families may have played an important role when E. onukii was exposed to essential oil stress. We also found differential expression of genes related to redox-related gene families, suggesting the upregulation of genes associated with possible development of drug and stress resistance. This work offers new insights for the prevention and management of E. onukii in the future., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Tan, Zhang, Wang, Pu, Hu, Li and Song.)

Rice ( Oryza Sativa L.) is an essential constituent of the global food chain. Drought stress significantly diminished its productivity and threatened global food security. This review concisely discussed how drought stress negatively influenced the rice's optimal growth cycle and altered its morpho-physiological, biochemical, and molecular responses. To withstand adverse drought conditions, plants activate their inherent drought resistance mechanism (escape, avoidance, tolerance, and recovery). Drought acclimation response is characterized by many notable responses, including redox homeostasis, osmotic modifications, balanced water relations, and restored metabolic activity. Drought tolerance is a complicated phenomenon, and conventional breeding strategies have only shown limited success. The application of molecular markers is a pragmatic technique to accelerate the ongoing breeding process, known as marker-assisted breeding. This review study compiled information about quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and genes associated with agronomic yield-related traits (grain size, grain yield, harvest index, etc.) under drought stress. It emphasized the significance of modern breeding techniques and marker-assisted selection (MAS) tools for introgressing the known QTLs/genes into elite rice lines to develop drought-tolerant rice varieties. Hence, this study will provide a solid foundation for understanding the complex phenomenon of drought stress and its utilization in future crop development programs. Though modern genetic markers are expensive, future crop development programs combined with conventional and MAS tools will help the breeders produce high-yielding and drought-tolerant rice varieties., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Hassan, Dahu, Hongning, Qian, Yueming, Yiru and Shimei.)

Ceramidases (CDases) are vital sphingolipid enzymes involved in organismal growth and development. They have been reported as key mediators of thermal stress response. However, whether and how CDase responds to heat stress in insects remain unclear. Herein, we identified two CDase genes, C. lividipennis alkaline ceramidase ( ClAC ) and neutral ceramidase ( ClNC ), by searching the transcriptome and genome databases of the mirid bug, Cyrtorhinus lividipennis , an important natural predator of planthoppers. Quantitative PCR (qPCR) analysis showed that both ClNC and ClAC were highly expressed in nymphs than in adults. ClAC was especially highly expressed in the head, thorax, and legs, while ClNC was widely expressed in the tested organs. Only the ClAC transcription was significantly affected by heat stress. Knocking down ClAC increased the C. lividipennis nymph survival rate under heat stress. The transcriptome and lipidomics data showed that the RNA interference-mediated suppression of ClAC significantly upregulated the transcription level of catalase ( CAT ) and the content of long-chain base ceramides, including C16-, C18-, C24-, and C31- ceramides. In C. lividipennis nymphs, ClAC played an important role in heat stress response, and the upregulation of nymph survival rate might be caused by variation in the ceramide levels and transcriptional changes in CDase downstream genes. This study improves our understanding of the physiological functions of insect CDase under heat stress and provides valuable insights into the nature enemy application., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Chen, Shi, Wang, Zhang, Shi, Zhou and Zhu.)

Glioblastoma (GBM), a highly malignant glioma of the central nervous system, is the most dread and common brain tumor with a high rate of therapeutic resistance and recurrence. Currently, the clinical treatment methods are surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. However, owning to the highly invasive nature of GBM, it is difficult to completely resect them due to the unclear boundary between the edges of GBM and normal brain tissue. Traditional radiotherapy and the combination of alkylating agents and radiotherapy have significant side effects, therapeutic drugs are difficult to penetrate the blood brain barrier. Patients receiving treatment have a high postoperative recurrence rate and a median survival of less than 2 years, Less than 5% of patients live longer than 5 years. Therefore, it is urgent to achieve precise treatment through the blood brain barrier and reduce toxic and side effects. Nanotechnology exhibit great potential in this area. This article summarizes the current treatment methods and shortcomings of GBM, and summarizes the research progress in the diagnosis and treatment of GBM using nanotechnology., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Wei, Zhang, Qu, Wang and Li.)

Introduction: This study aimed to explore potential risk factors for mental health concerns, and the prediction model for mental health concerns in Chinese soldiers was constructed through combined eligible risk factors., Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on soldiers under direct command from Gansu, Sichuan, and Chongqing in China, and the soldiers were selected by cluster convenient sampling from 16 October 2018 to 10 December 2018. The Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90) and three questionnaires (Military Mental Health Status Questionnaire, Military Mental Health Ability Questionnaire, and Mental Quality Questionnaire for Army Men) were administered, including demographics, military careers, and 18 factors., Results: Of 1,430 Chinese soldiers, 162 soldiers presented mental disorders, with a prevalence of 11.33%. A total of five risk factors were identified, including serving place (Sichuan vs. Gansu: OR, 1.846, 95% CI: 1.028-3.315, P = 0.038; Chongqing vs. Gansu: OR, 3.129, 95% CI, 1.669-5.869, P = 0.003), psychosis (OR, 1.491, 95% CI, 1.152-1.928, P = 0.002), depression (OR, 1.482, 95% CI, 1.349-1.629, P < 0.001), sleep problems (OR, 1.235, 95% CI, 1.162-1.311, P < 0.001), and frustration (OR, 1.050, 95% CI, 1.015-1.087, P = 0.005). The area under the ROC curve by combining these factors was 0.930 (95% CI: 0.907-0.952) for predicting mental disorders in Chinese soldiers., Conclusion: The findings of this study demonstrate that mental disorders and onset in Chinese soldiers can be predicted on the basis of these three questionnaires, and the predictive value of the combined model was high., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Zhao, He, Tang, Wang, Zheng and Feng.)

The chronic metabolic disease named type 2 diabetes (T2D) accounts for over 90% of diabetes mellitus. An increasing number of evidences have revealed that hypoxia has a significantly suppressive effect on cell-mediated immunity, as well as the utilization of glucose in diabetics. Therefore, we aimed to screen and identify hypoxia-immune-related hub genes in T2D through bioinformatic analysis. The Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database was used to get T2D gene expression profile data in the peripheral blood samples (GSE184050), and hypoxia-related genes were acquired from Molecular Signatures Database (MSigDB). Differentially expressed mRNAs (DEGs) and lncRNAs (DELs) between T2D and normal samples were identified by DeSeq2 package. The clusterProfiler package was used to perform enrichment analyses for the overlapped genes of DEGs and hypoxia-related genes. Further, Hypoxia-related hub genes were discovered using two machine learning algorithms. Next, the compositional patterns of immune and stromal cells in T2D and healthy groups were estimated by using xCell algorithm. Moreover, we used the weighted correlation network analysis (WGCNA) to examine the connection between genes and immune cells to screen immune-related genes. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) was used to investigate the functions of the hypoxia-immune-related hub genes. Finally, two peripheral blood cohorts of T2D (GSE184050 and GSE95849) as well as the quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) experiments for clicinal peripheral blood samples with T2D were used for verification analyses of hub genes. And meanwhile, a lncRNA-TF-mRNA network was constructed. Following the differentially expressed analysis, 38 out of 3822 DEGs were screened as hypoxia-related DEGs, and 493 DELs were found. These hypoxia-related DEGs were mainly enriched in the GO terms of pyruvate metabolic process, cytoplasmic vesicle lumen and monosaccharide binding, and the KEGG pathways of glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, pentose phosphate pathway and biosynthesis of nucleotide sugars. Moreover, 7 out of hypoxia-related DEGs were identified as hub genes. There were six differentially expressed immune cell types between T2D and healthy samples, which were further used as the clinical traits for WGCNA to identify AMPD3 and IER3 as the hypoxia-immune-related hub genes. The results of the KEGG pathways of genes in high-expression groups of AMPD3 and IER3 were mainly concentrated in glycosaminoglycan degradation and vasopressin-regulated water reabsorption, while the low-expression groups of AMPD3 and IER3 were mainly associated with RNA degradation and nucleotide excision repair. Finally, when compared to normal samples, both the AMPD3 and IER3 were highly expressed in the T2D groups in the GSE184050 and GSE95849 datasets. The result of lncRNA-TF-mRNA regulatory network showed that lncRNAs such as BACH1-IT1 and SNHG15 might induce the expression of the corresponding TFs such as TFAM and THAP12 and upregulate the expression of AMPD3 . This study identified AMPD3 and IER3 as hypoxia-immune-related hub genes and potential regulatory mechanism for T2D, which provided a new perspective for elucidating the upstream molecular regulatory mechanism of diabetes mellitus., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Li, Yan, Li, He and Yu.)

Objective: Glucokinase-maturity-onset diabetes of the young (GCK-MODY; MODY2) is a rare genetic disorder caused by mutations in the glucokinase ( GCK ) gene. It is often under- or misdiagnosed in clinical practice, but correct diagnosis can be facilitated by genetic testing. In this study, we examined the genes of three patients diagnosed with GCK-MODY and tested their biochemical properties, such as protein stability and half-life, to explore the function of the mutant proteins and identify the pathogenic mechanism of GCK-MODY. Methods: Three patients with increased blood glucose levels were diagnosed with MODY2 according to the diagnostic guidelines of GCK-MODY proposed by the International Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes (ISPAD) in 2018. Next-generation sequencing (whole exome detection) was performed to detect gene mutations. The GCK gene and its mutations were introduced into the pCDNA3.0 and pGEX-4T-1 vectors. Following protein purification, enzyme activity assay, and protein immunoblotting, the enzyme activity of GCK was determined, along with the ubiquitination level of the mutant GCK protein. Results: Genetic testing revealed three mutations in the GCK gene of the three patients, including c.574C>T (p.R192W), c.758G>A (p.C253Y), and c.794G>A (p.G265D). The biochemical characteristics of the protein encoded by wild-type GCK and mutant GCK were different, compared to wild-type GCK, the enzyme activity encoded by the mutant GCK was reduced, suggesting thermal instability of the mutant GST-GCK. The protein stability and expression levels of the mutant GCK were reduced, and the enzyme activity of GCK was negatively correlated with the levels of fasting blood glucose and HbA1c. In addition, ubiquitination of the mutant GCK protein was higher than that of the wild-type, suggesting a higher degradation rate of mutant GCK than WT-GCK. Conclusion: GCK mutations lead to changes in the biochemical characteristics of its encoded proteins. The enzyme activities, protein expression, and protein stability of GCK may be reduced in patients with GCK gene mutations, which further causes glucose metabolism disorders and induces MODY2., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Dai, Yang, Zhang, Ma, Chen, Zhang, Lv, Li, Tang, Zhen, Lu, Li, Hu, Xiao and Dong.)

As important components of the biological soil crusts (BSCs) and of the primary stage of crust succession, cyanobacterial communities occupy an important ecological niche and play an important ecological role in desertification areas. In this study, we focused on the karst desertification area, which also belongs to the same category of desertification, and selected three study areas, Guanling-Zhenfeng Huajiang (HJ), Bijie Salaxi (SLX), and Shibing (SB), in the Guizhou Plateau, which represents the overall ecological environment of South China karst, to conduct surveys on the diversity of BSC species and soil properties. Analysis of the cyanobacterial communities and physicochemical properties using the Shannon-Wiener diversity index, principal component analysis, and redundancy analysis revealed that: (1) The three study areas had common cyanobacterial species, with a total of 200 species distributed across 22 genera, 2 classes, 5 orders, and 6 families belonging to the Oscillatoriales (39%), Scytonematales (24.5%), Chroococcales (23%), Nostocales (11.5%), and Rivulariales (2%), (2) The number of species increased with the intensity of karst desertification-while Oscillatoriaceae was the dominant family in HJ and moderate-severe desertification areas, Chroococcaceae and Scytonemataceae were dominant in the mild and potential desertification areas SLX and SB, (3) The Shannon-Wiener diversity indices followed the trend: SLX (3.56) > SB (3.08) > HJ (3.01), indicating that the species were more evenly distributed in mild desertification, (4) In the carbonate background, shrubland harbored the largest number of cyanobacterial species compared to grassland, bare land, and arbor woodland; however, the highest number was documented in arbor woodland in dolomite karst, (5) The soil is weathered limestone or yellow soil in all three areas, with pH ranging from 5.73 to 6.85, fine sand dominated, and soil nutrients increased with the intensity of desertification, and (6) Redundancy analysis showed that organic carbon, soil moisture content (0-5 cm), and total nitrogen substantially influenced cyanobacterial diversity. These results reveal that differences in soil nutrient content play an important role in regulating the cyanobacterial diversity and composition, thereby establishing a foundation for further research and application of soil ecological restoration of cyanobacteria in BSCs of karst desertification areas., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Chen, Yan, Xiong and Zhao.)

Due to the lack of scientific guidance on the usage of fertilizer, the overuse of chemical and organic fertilizer is commonly witnessed all over the world, which causes soil degradation and leads to environmental pollution. The effect of fertilizer strategies on soil properties, cucumber nutrients, and microbial community was investigated in this study with the aim to explore an optimized and enhanced fertilizer strategy. There were five fertilizer strategies conducted including CK (no fertilizer), M (cow dung manure only), NPK (chemical fertilizer only), NPKM (chemical fertilizer combined with manure), and DNPKM (30%-reducing chemical fertilizer combined with manure). It was found that different fertilizer strategies significantly affected the soil organic matter and nutrient levels and cucumber production and nutrient contents of the experimental field. Different fertilizer strategies showed dramatic effects on the alpha- and beta-diversity of soil microbial communities. Moreover, NPKM and DNPKM groups could significantly improve the bacterial abundance and fungal diversity. In addition, the structure of microbial communities was significantly changed in the presence of manure, chemical fertilizer, and their combination. Optimized combination of NPK with M improved the abundance of aerobic, biofilm formation-related, and Gram-negative bacteria and suppressed the anaerobic and Gram-positive bacteria. The presence of saprotrophs fungi was enhanced by all fertilizer strategies, especially the plethora of Gymnoascus . The combination of manure with chemical fertilizer could improve the availability of nutrients, and therefore reduce the adverse effects and potential risks induced by excessive fertilizer application. In conclusion, the new fertilization approach can not only meet the growth requirements of cucumber after reduced fertilization, but also protect soil health, which provides a new candidate for the eco-friendly technology to satisfy the topic of carbon neutrality., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Wang, Xu, Ni, Ren, Li, Wu, Yang, Liu, Liu, Liu, Shi, Zhang, Jiang and Tu.)

Objectives: Mobile Phone Addiction (MPA) is a novel behavioral addiction resulting in circadian rhythm disorders that severely affect mental and physical health. The purpose of this study is to detect rhythmic salivary metabolites in MPA with sleep disorder (MPASD) subjects and investigate the effects of acupuncture., Methods: Six MPASD patients and six healthy controls among the volunteers were enrolled by MPA Tendency Scale (MPATS) and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), then the salivary samples of MPASD and healthy controls were collected every 4-h for three consecutive days. Acupuncture was administered for 7 days to MPASD subjects, then saliva samples were collected again. Salivary metabolomes were analyzed with the method of LC-MS., Result: According to our investigation, 70 (57.85%) MPA patients and 56 (46.28%) MPASD patients were identified among 121 volunteers. The symptoms of the 6 MPASD subjects were significantly alleviated after acupuncture intervention. The number of rhythmic saliva metabolites dropped sharply in MPASD subjects and restored after acupuncture. Representative rhythmic saliva metabolites including melatonin, 2'-deoxyuridine, thymidine, thymidine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate lost rhythm and restored after acupuncture, which may attribute to promising MPASD treatment and diagnosis biomarkers. The rhythmic saliva metabolites of healthy controls were mainly enriched in neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction, whereas polyketide sugar unit biosynthesis was mainly enriched in MPASD patients., Conclusion: This study revealed circadian rhythm characteristics of salivary metabolites in MPASD and that acupuncture could ameliorate MPASD by restoring part of the dysrhythmia salivary metabolites., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Yang, Yang, Zhang, Yang, Mei, Zheng, He, Gong and Ding.)

Migraine is a common disease of the nervous system that seriously affects the quality of life of patients and constitutes a growing global health crisis. However, many limitations and challenges exist in migraine research, including the unclear etiology and the lack of specific biomarkers for diagnosis and treatment. Electroencephalography (EEG) is a neurophysiological technique for measuring brain activity. With the updating of data processing and analysis methods in recent years, EEG offers the possibility to explore altered brain functional patterns and brain network characteristics of migraines in depth. In this paper, we provide an overview of the methodology that can be applied to EEG data processing and analysis and a narrative review of EEG-based migraine-related research. To better understand the neural changes of migraine or to provide a new idea for the clinical diagnosis and treatment of migraine in the future, we discussed the study of EEG and evoked potential in migraine, compared the relevant research methods, and put forwards suggestions for future migraine EEG studies., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Zhang, Pan, Chen, Zhai, Liu, Huang, Sun, Lin, He, Hou, Yu, Li and Chen.)

Background: Patients with primary dysmenorrhea (PDM) often present with abnormalities other than dysmenorrhea including co-occurrence with other chronic pain conditions and central sensitization. Changes in brain activity in PDM have been demonstrated; however, the results are not consistent. Herein, this study probed into altered intraregional and interregional brain activity in patients with PDM and expounded more findings., Methods: A total of 33 patients with PDM and 36 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited and underwent a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Regional homogeneity (ReHo) and mean amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (mALFF) analysis were applied to compare the difference in intraregional brain activity between the two groups, and the regions with ReHo and mALFF group differences were used as seeds for functional connectivity (FC) analysis to explore the difference of interregional activity. Pearson's correlation analysis was conducted between rs-fMRI data and clinical symptoms in patients with PDM., Results: Compared with HCs, patients with PDM showed altered intraregional activity in a series of brain regions, including the hippocampus, the temporal pole superior temporal gyrus, the nucleus accumbens, the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex, the cerebellum&#95;8, the middle temporal gyrus, the inferior temporal gyrus, the rolandic operculum, the postcentral gyrus and the middle frontal gyrus (MFG), and altered interregional FC mainly between regions of the mesocorticolimbic pathway and regions associated with sensation and movement. The anxiety symptoms are correlated with the intraregional activity of the right temporal pole superior temporal gyrus and FC between MFG and superior frontal gyrus., Conclusion: Our study showed a more comprehensive method to explore changes in brain activity in PDM. We found that the mesocorticolimbic pathway might play a key role in the chronic transformation of pain in PDM. We, therefore, speculate that the modulation of the mesocorticolimbic pathway may be a potential novel therapeutic mechanism for PDM., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Liu, Li, Hong, Huo, Chang, Wang, Huang, Li and Zhang.)

Camellia sinensis var. Assamica cv. Duntsa ( C.duntsa ), a valuable Theaceae from Hunan Province, has been looked at as a precious tea resource by local farmers because of its economic and ecological value. Genomics study on C.duntsa is essential for the domestication and enhancement of tea tree varieties. In the present study, we used a hybrid approach based on Illumina and PacBio data to sequence and assemble the mitochondrial genome of C.duntsa . The mitochondrial genome of C.duntsa was estimated to be 1,081,996 base pairs (bp) and eighty-one genes consisting of one pseudogene, three ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes, thirty transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, and forty-seven protein-coding genes (PCGs). Tetramer repetitions made up 43.90% of simple sequence repeats (SSRs). The codon usage bias of the Theaceae mitochondrial gene atp9 was altered by mutation, but the codon usage of other genes was shaped by natural selection. Besides, there are eighteen gene-containing homologous regions between the chloroplast and mitochondrial genomes of C. duntsa .Some genomes including atp8 , cox1 , cox3 , nad7 , nad9 , rpl16 , rpl2 , rps19 , rps4 , and sdh4 are absent in the mitochondrial genome of several Theaceae plant. However, C. duntsa maintains these genes integrity and functionality. Another gene, rps16 , is either lacking from the mitochondrial genome of C. duntsa or is present as a pseudogene. C. duntsa and C. sinensis (OM809792) are very similar, as shown by a collinear match across four species of Theaceae ; the most conservative genes are nad5 , atp9 , cox2 , rps3 , trnA-TGC , trnI-GAT , rrn18 , trnV-GAC , and ccmFN . Similarly, the genome's phylogenetic trees revealed that C. duntsa was the sister species to C. sinensis . The results confirmed that the C. duntsa and C. sinensis (OM809792) mitochondrial genome underwent gene rearrangement.In general, our results shows that genomic information from organelles can help us understand plant phylogeny and can also be used to make molecular markers and study how genetic traits change over time. Our research will contribute to the population genetics and evolution of tea plant., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Li, Tang, Luo, Tang, Zhong and Xiao.)

Introduction: Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is a life-threatening lung illness that affects premature infants and has a high incidence and mortality. Using interpretable machine learning, we aimed to investigate the involvement of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress-related genes (ERSGs) in BPD patients. Methods: We evaluated the expression profiles of endoplasmic reticulum stress-related genes and immune features in bronchopulmonary dysplasia using the GSE32472 dataset. The endoplasmic reticulum stress-related gene-based molecular clusters and associated immune cell infiltration were studied using 62 bronchopulmonary dysplasia samples. Cluster-specific differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified utilizing the WGCNA technique. The optimum machine model was applied after comparing its performance with that of the generalized linear model, the extreme Gradient Boosting, the support vector machine (SVM) model, and the random forest model. Validation of the prediction efficiency was done by the use of a calibration curve, nomogram, decision curve analysis, and an external data set. Results: The bronchopulmonary dysplasia samples were compared to the control samples, and the dysregulated endoplasmic reticulum stress-related genes and activated immunological responses were analyzed. In bronchopulmonary dysplasia, two distinct molecular clusters associated with endoplasmic reticulum stress were identified. The analysis of immune cell infiltration indicated a considerable difference in levels of immunity between the various clusters. As measured by residual and root mean square error, as well as the area under the curve, the support vector machine machine model showed the greatest discriminative capacity. In the end, an support vector machine model integrating five genes was developed, and its performance was shown to be excellent on an external validation dataset. The effectiveness in predicting bronchopulmonary dysplasia subtypes was further established by decision curves, calibration curves, and nomogram analyses. Conclusion: We developed a potential prediction model to assess the risk of endoplasmic reticulum stress subtypes and the clinical outcomes of bronchopulmonary dysplasia patients, and our work comprehensively revealed the complex association between endoplasmic reticulum stress and bronchopulmonary dysplasia., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Tao, Mao, Hu, Tang, Wang, Zeng, Bao, Luo, Wu and Jiang.)

Background: Cerebral revascularization is a neurosurgical procedure used to restore the cerebral collateral circulation channel. This study examines the countries, institutions, authors, journals, keywords, and references related to the disease in the field of cerebral revascularization from 1999 to 2022 from a bibliometrics perspective, evaluates the changes of knowledge structure clustering and identifies the new hot spots and new research directions in this field., Methods: The Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) database and the PICOS retrieval method were used to conduct a comprehensive search for articles and reviews pertaining to cerebral revascularization. The final filtered data were bibliometrically and visually drawn using Microsoft office 365, CiteSpace (v.6.1.R2), and VOSviewer (v.1.6.18)., Results: From 1999 to 2022, a total of 854 articles pertaining to cerebral revascularization, which originated from 46 nations, 482 institutions, and 686 researchers, were extracted from the WOSCC database, and the number of publications in this field of study was rising. The United States held the highest proportion in the ranking analysis of countries, institutions, authors, and journals. By analyzing co-citations, the scientific organization of this field and the development status of frontier fields were realized. Cerebral revascularization, moyamoya disease, extracranial intracranial bypass, and occlusion are the current research focal points in the field of cerebral revascularization. Hyperperfusion and vascular disorder may also become a new study focus in this discipline in the near future., Conclusion: Using the method of bibliometrics, this study analyzed and reviewed the articles in the field of cerebral revascularization, which enabled scholars to better comprehend the dynamic process in this field and provided a foundation for future in-depth research., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Zhang, Li, Jia, Chen and Hu.)

Background: Alcohol use disorder (AUD) has become a significant global factor in various diseases. As a non-pharmacological therapy, certain therapeutic potential has been found in acupuncture; however, in-depth mechanistic studies related to acupuncture for patients with AUD are still insufficient., Methods: Based on a randomized control design and a multi-omics analysis plan, this protocol details the recruitment (42 AUD patients), group allocation (21 in acupuncture group vs. 21 in sham acupuncture group), intervention and follow-up (replacement drugs as a normal treatment, 2 weeks acupuncture duration, and 3 month follow-up), and data collection and analytical processes. For the clinical outcomes, in addition to the time required for alcohol withdrawal symptoms to subside as the primary outcome, changes in the alcohol withdrawal symptoms, alcohol craving, mood dysfunction, sleep disorder, fatigue, self-efficacy, gastrointestinal symptoms, the quality of life, and the relapse outcomes will be compared between the groups to confirm the acupuncture clinical effectiveness on alcohol withdraw. The gut microbiome and the fecal metabolomics will also be assessed to explore the association of the structure and the function of gut microflora and the mediation of acupuncture effect on AUD fully utilizing gut microflora multi-modal data and clinical information, via the combination of multi-omics methods, feature screening algorithms and appropriate models., Discussion: The results of this study may help to strengthen clinical evidence of the mechanism of acupuncture intervention in patients with AUD, through understanding of the regulatory mechanism of acupuncture in the gut microbiome and its metabolism as well as AUD-related clinical manifestations., Trial Registration: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry ChiCTR2200058120. Registered on 24 Mar 2022., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Zhang, Lan, Fan, Chen, Wei, Li, Fan, Tang and Lu.)

Introduction: Sciatica is a pain disorder often caused by the herniated disk compressing the lumbosacral nerve roots. Neuroimaging studies have identified functional abnormalities in patients with chronic sciatica (CS). However, few studies have investigated the neural marker of CS using brain structure and the classification value of multidimensional neuroimaging features in CS patients is unclear., Methods: Here, structural and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was acquired for 34 CS patients and 36 matched healthy controls (HCs). We analyzed cortical surface area, cortical thickness, amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF), regional homogeneity (REHO), between-regions functional connectivity (FC), and assessed the correlation between neuroimaging measures and clinical scores. Finally, the multimodal neuroimaging features were used to differentiate the CS patients and HC individuals by support vector machine (SVM) algorithm., Results: Compared to HC, CS patients had a larger cortical surface area in the right banks of the superior temporal sulcus and rostral anterior cingulate; higher ALFF value in the left inferior frontal gyrus; enhanced FCs between somatomotor and ventral attention network. Three FCs values were associated with clinical pain scores. Furthermore, the three multimodal neuroimaging features with significant differences between groups and the SVM algorithm could classify CS patients and HC with an accuracy of 90.00%., Discussion: Together, our findings revealed extensive reorganization of local functional properties, surface area, and network metrics in CS patients. The success of patient identification highlights the potential of using artificial intelligence and multimodal neuroimaging markers in chronic pain research., 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 Wei, Wang, Yu, Lee, Liu, Ren, Tu, Zhou, Shi, Wang and Liu.)

Psoriasis is a chronic, autoimmune disorder that is related to mental health disorders such as depression. However, few studies have focused on the features of brain activity in psoriasis patients with depression (PPD) and the association between brain activity and disease severity. A total of 29 PPD and 24 healthy controls were involved in this study, and all participants underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning. The psoriasis area and severity index (PASI) and the self-rating depression scale (SDS) were used to measure clinical symptoms. Compared with HCs, PPD patients showed increased fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (fALFF) in the Frontal&#95;Mid&#95;L and increased functional connectivity (FC) between the hypothalamus-R and the Cingulum&#95;Mid&#95;R. Correlation analysis suggested a positive correlation between PASI and SDS scores in PPD, while the fALFF and FC values were negatively correlated with their SDS and PASI scores. These brain regions may be associated with the development of depressive symptoms and disease severity in psoriasis patients., 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, Liu, Wu, Zhang and Zhang.)

Aims: Alcohol consumption could lead to a series of health problems and social issues. In the current study, we investigated the resting-state functional brain networks of healthy volunteers before and after drinking through graph-theory analysis, aiming to ascertain the effects of acute alcohol intake on topology and information processing mode of the functional brain networks., Materials and Methods: Thirty-three healthy volunteers were enrolled in this experiment. Each volunteer accepted alcohol breathalyzer tests followed by resting-state magnetic resonance imaging at three time points: before drinking, 0.5 h after drinking, and 1 h after drinking. The data obtained were grouped based on scanning time into control group, 0.5-h group and 1-h group, and post-drinking data were regrouped according to breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) into relative low BrAC group (A group; 0.5-h data, n = 17; 1-h data, n = 16) and relative high BrAC group (B group; 0.5-h data, n = 16; 1-h data, n = 17). The graph-theory approach was adopted to construct whole-brain functional networks and identify the differences of network topological properties among all the groups., Results: The network topology of most groups was altered after drinking, with the B group presenting the most alterations. For global network measures, B group exhibited increased global efficiency, Synchronization, and decreased local efficiency, clustering coefficient, normalized clustering coefficient, characteristic path length, normalized characteristic path length, as compared to control group. Regarding nodal network measures, nodal clustering coefficient and nodal local efficiency of some nodes were lower in B group than control group. These changes suggested that the network integration ability and synchrony improved, while the segregation ability diminished., Conclusion: This study revealed the effects of acute alcohol intake on the topology and information processing mode of resting-state functional brain networks, providing new perceptions and insights into the effects of alcohol on the brain., 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 Zhang, Liu, Zheng, Li, Kong and Zheng.)

Aims: Currently, there are only a few studies concerning brain functional alterations after acute alcohol exposure, and the majority of existing studies attach more importance to the spatial properties of brain function without considering the temporal properties. The current study adopted sliding window to investigate the resting-state brain networks in healthy volunteers after acute alcohol intake and to explore the dynamic changes in network connectivity., Materials and Methods: Twenty healthy volunteers were enrolled in this study. Blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) data prior to drinking were obtained as control, while that 0.5 and 1 h after drinking were obtained as the experimental group. Reoccurring functional connectivity patterns (states) were determined following group independent component analysis (ICA), sliding window analysis and k-means clustering. Between-group comparisons were performed with respect to the functional connectivity states fractional windows, mean dwell time, and the number of transitions., Results: Three optimal functional connectivity states were identified. The fractional windows and mean dwell time of 0.5 h group and 1 h group increased in state 3, while the fraction window and mean dwell time of 1 h group decreased in state 1. State 1 is characterized by strong inter-network connections between basal ganglia network (BGN) and sensorimotor network (SMN), BGN and cognitive executive network (CEN), and default mode network (DMN) and visual network (VN). However, state 3 is distinguished by relatively weak intra-network connections in SMN, VN, CEN, and DMN. State 3 was thought to be a characteristic connectivity pattern of the drunk brain. State 1 was believed to represent the brain's main connection pattern when awake. Such dynamic changes in brain network connectivity were consistent with participants' subjective feelings after drinking., Conclusion: The current study reveals the dynamic change in resting-state brain functional network connectivity before and after acute alcohol intake. It was discovered that there might be relatively independent characteristic functional network connection patterns under intoxication, and the corresponding patterns characterize the clinical manifestations of volunteers. As a valuable imaging biomarker, dynamic functional network connectivity (dFNC) offers a new approach and basis for further explorations on brain network alterations after alcohol consumption and the alcohol-related mechanisms for neurological damage., 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 Zhang, Li, Liu, Zheng and Zheng.)

This study explores the relationship between self-compassion and mental health of postgraduates based on the perspective of the dual-factor model (DFM) of mental health and the mediating role of help-seeking behavior. A total of 605 postgraduates were investigated with a questionnaire. The results showed that the DFM of mental health was better than the one-factor model for the mental health status of postgraduates. Among them, those with complete mental health accounted for the highest proportion (63.3%), followed by vulnerable (25.1%), troubled (9.1%), and symptomatic but content (2.5%). Self-compassion and non-professional help-seeking behavior had a positive predictive effect on positive mental health factors of the postgraduates, while self-compassion had a negative predictive effect on their psychological symptoms. Non-professional help-seeking behavior played a partial mediating role between self-compassion and positive mental health factors., 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 Min, Jianchao and Mengyuan.)

In China, investors generally make decisions depending on the intonation of executive announcements. A total of 20,328 observations are sampled from the Chinese equity market between 2005 and 2019. We perform principal component analysis to produce monthly sentiment indices and calculate the weighted average of the value over the fiscal year to measure the degree of investor sentiment. The results of the empirical analysis reveal that: (1) there is a significant positive correlation between market-level investor sentiment and executive tone, (2) stock price and trading-volume pressures on executives, and firm-level investor expectation and gambling tendency positively moderate the relationship between investor sentiment and executive tone, (3) executive optimism does not mediate the association between investor sentiment and executive tone, and (4) manipulated and real intonations are non-homogeneous tactics adopted by rational managers to cater to changes in investor sentiment. These findings indicate that executives' intonations are both an extension of firms' current and past performances and managers' decision-making based on sentiments and behaviors of irrational investors, which are consistent with the Catering Theory. In addition, rational executives tend to adopt various intonation tactics to respond to investor sentiment to avoid declines in stock prices and trading volumes., 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 Qiu and Yang.)

The high morbidity of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) brings on a panic around the world. COVID-19 is associated with sex bias, immune system, and preexisting chronic diseases. We analyzed the gene expression in patients with COVID-19 and in their microbiota in order to identify potential biomarkers to aid in disease management. A total of 129 RNA samples from nasopharyngeal, oropharyngeal, and anal swabs were collected and sequenced in a high-throughput manner. Several microbial strains differed in abundance between patients with mild or severe COVID-19. Microbial genera were more abundant in oropharyngeal swabs than in nasopharyngeal or anal swabs. Oropharyngeal swabs allowed more sensitive detection of the causative SARS-CoV-2. Microbial and human transcriptomes in swabs from patients with mild disease showed enrichment of genes involved in amino acid metabolism, or protein modification via small protein removal, and antibacterial defense responses, respectively, whereas swabs from patients with severe disease showed enrichment of genes involved in drug metabolism, or negative regulation of apoptosis execution, spermatogenesis, and immune system, respectively. Microbial abundance and diversity did not differ significantly between males and females. The expression of several host genes on the X chromosome correlated negatively with disease severity. In this way, our analyses identify host genes whose differential expression could aid in the diagnosis of COVID-19 and prediction of its severity via non-invasive assay., Competing Interests: JMMi, ZZ, XYHe, LC, JS, ZS, and JMMa were employed by the company BGI-Shenzhen. The remaining 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 Gan, Min, Long, Li, Hu, Zhu, Li, Wang, He, Cai, Zhang, He, Chen, Wang, Su, Zhao, Huang, Zhang, Su, Guo, Hu, Mao, Ma and Pang.)

Background: lncRNAs play a critical role in multiple steps of gene regulation associated with tumor progression. However, the engagement of DDX59-AS1, a lncRNA, remains equivocal, particularly in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). In this study, the expression of DDX59-AS1 and its association with immune infiltration were investigated, and its prognostic value in OSSC was evaluated. Methods: OSCC patients were collected from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. The expression of DDX59-AS1 in OSCC and healthy tissue was compared using Wilcoxon rank sum test. The relationship between DDX59-AS1 and clinicopathological features was analyzed using Logistic regression. Gene ontology (GO) terminology analysis, gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA), and single sample GSEA (ssGSEA) were utilized to interpret the enrichment pathway and functionality and to quantify the immune cell infiltration of DDX59-AS1. The correlation between survival and DDA59-AS1 was evaluated by Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox regression. The prognostic impact of DDX59-AS1 was predicted by the nomogram based on Cox multivariate analysis. Results: High expression of DDX59-AS1 was significantly correlated with T stage, clinical stage, race, and age ( p < 0.05). Multivariate survival analysis demonstrated that the high expression of DDX59-AS1 was associated with lower overall and specific survival rates. The prognosis prediction was validated by the nomogram and calibration curves. The expression of DDX59-AS1 was negatively correlated with Mast cells, Tfh, T cells, Treg, and B cells, and positively related with the Tgd infiltration level. Conclusion: DDX59-AS1 played a crucial role in the progression and prognosis of OSCC and was potentially a predictive biomarker for OSCC., 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 Sun, Zhou, Sun, Bi, Li, Wu, Li, Song, Yang and Yu.)

Squash leaf curl China virus (SLCCNV) is a bipartite Begomovirus. The function of the protein AC5, which is encoded by SLCCNV, is unknown. Here, we confirmed that the 172-amino acids (aa) long AC5 protein of SLCCNV could suppress single-stranded RNA but not double-stranded RNA-induced post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS). Furthermore, we determined that the C-terminal domain (96-172 aa) of the AC5 protein was responsible for RNA silencing suppressor (RSS) activity via deletion mutant analysis. The AC5 protein can reverse GFP silencing and inhibit systemic silencing of GFP by interfering with the systemic spread of the GFP silencing signal. The SLCCNV AC5 protein was localized to both the nucleus and cytoplasm of Nicotiana benthamiana cells. Furthermore, deletion analysis showed that the putative nuclear localization signal (NLS, 102-155 aa) was crucial for the RNA silencing suppression activity of AC5. In addition, the AC5 protein elicited a hypersensitive response and enhanced potoao virus X (PVX) RNA accumulation in infected N . benthamiana plants. Using the infectious clones of the SLCCNV and SLCCNV-AC5 null mutants, mutational analysis confirmed that knockout of the AC5 gene abolished SLCCNV-induced leaf curl symptoms, showing SLCCNV AC5 is also a virulence determinant., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Wu, Liu, Kang, Liu, Hong, Peng and Gu.)