Search

Abstract Purpose To evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of intravenous amoxicillin clavulanate potassium combined with nebulized budesonide and ambroxol hydrochloride in pediatric community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) and its impact across various microbial strains and clinical symptoms. The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of intravenous amoxicillin-clavulanate combined with nebulized budesonide and ambroxol hydrochloride in the treatment of pediatric community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), and to analyze their impact on different microbial strains and clinical symptoms. Secondary objectives include assessing the treatment's effect on the improvement of clinical symptoms, hospital stay duration, and the levels of inflammatory markers. Design Prospective, single-center study. Methods Fifty-six children with CAP, aged under 6 years, from Affiliated Maternity and Child Health Care Hospital of Nantong University were included. Patients were treated with conventional therapy and the study medication. Clinical characteristics, microbiological data, symptom improvement, and hospitalization times were analyzed. Findings Young children, particularly under 1 year, exhibited a higher incidence of multiple microbial infections and severe clinical manifestations. Treatment with budesonide and ambroxol hydrochloride led to significant clinical improvement across all age groups, with notable efficacy against various pathogens. Conclusions Nebulized budesonide and ambroxol hydrochloride are effective in treating pediatric CAP, offering a promising therapeutic option, particularly for young children with severe presentations.

Abstract The OVATE gene family plays an important role in regulating the development of plant organs and resisting stress, but its expression characteristics and functions in sorghum have not been revealed. In this study, we identified 26 OVATE genes in the sorghum BTx623 genome, which were divided into four groups and distributed unevenly across 9 chromosomes. Evolutionary analysis showed that after differentiation between sorghum and Arabidopsis, the OVATE gene family may have experienced unique expansion events, and all OVATE family members were negatively selected. Transcriptome sequencing and RT-qPCR results showed that OVATE genes in sorghum showed diverse expression characteristics, such as gene SORBl_3001G468900 and SORBl_3009G173400 were significantly expressed in seeds, while SORBI_3005G042700 and SORBI_3002G417700 were only highly expressed in L1. Meantime, in the promoter region, a large number of hormone-associated cis-acting elements were identified, and these results suggest that members of the OVATE gene family may be involved in regulating specific development of sorghum leaves and seeds. This study improves the understanding of the OVATE gene family of sorghum and provides important clues for further exploration of the function of the OVATE gene family.

Objective: To investigate the applicability of artificial intelligence-assisted diagnosis system in detecting pulmonary nodules and distinguishing benign and malignant nodules. Methods: Patients who underwent chest computed tomography (CT) from March 2022 to March 2023 at our hospital and who were followed-up with CT-guided needle biopsy or surgical procedures to determine the pathological nature were included in the study. The criteria for identifying true positive nodules were identified on the basis of the image analysis based on AI and two radiologists who identified suspicious lesions and referred to multiplanar reconstruction and three-dimensional reconstruction and other images to determine the existence of lung nodules; the findings from the two reports were consistent. The detection value of benign and malignant nodules obtained from AI and radiologists for true-positive nodules were compared. Results: AI detected 1337 nodules in 113 patients; radiologists detected 774 nodules, and verified the coexistence of 1079 true-positive nodules. The detection rate of true positive nodules (98.98%) by AI software was higher than that of radiologists (71.27%), the missed diagnosis rate (1.02%) was lower than that of radiologists (28.27%), and the misdiagnosis rate (23.91%) was higher than that of radiologists (0.46%). The true positive detection rate of AI for nodules with diameters 10 mm (98.08%) was slightly higher than that of radiologists (94.87%), but the difference was not statistically significant. Further large-sample clinical studies are needed to verify our findings. The detection rates of mixed ground-glass and calcified nodules (98.47%; 98.79%; 100.00%; 100.00%) from AI imaging were higher than those of the radiologists (75.52%; 68.02%; 72.73%; 84.66%). In the identification of benign and malignant nodules, 115 nodules in 113 patients were confirmed by pathological examination, of which 98 nodules were obtained by interventional surgery or CT-guided biopsy in our hospital, and 17 nodules were determined by follow-up diagnosis and during treatment at other hospitals. The sensitivity (97.47%), specificity (80.56%), and accuracy (92.17%) of the radiologists for the identification of benign and malignant nodules were higher than those of AI (93.67%, 66.67%, and 85.22%, respectively); however, the difference in sensitivity and specificity was not significant and might have been caused by sample selection bias. AI achieved high agreement with pathological results (Kappa value, 0.637), and radiologists achieved almost complete agreement (Kappa value, 0.811). Conclusion: AI-assisted diagnosis has a high detection rate and sensitivity for pulmonary nodules, which can greatly reduce the missed diagnosis rate, but increases the misdiagnosis rate. It can serve as an auxiliary aid for clinical diagnosis in identifying benign and malignant pulmonary nodules, but it cannot replace radiologists.

BackgroundMelastoma dodecandrum Lour. (MD), a traditional botanical drug known for its hypoglycemic, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory properties, is commonly used to treat diabetes, osteoarthritis, and osteoporosis. However, its specific active components against diabetic osteoporosis remain unclear.PurposeThis study aimed to identify the key active components in MD using cell membrane chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry and validate their effects in vitro.MethodsAn AGEs-induced osteoblast injury model was established. MTT assays measured cell viability, and ALP activity was assessed using a biochemical kit. Western blotting was employed to detect the expression levels of osteoblast-related proteins OCN and RUNX2 and the AGE receptor protein RAGE. ELISA was used to determine the levels of SOD, MDA, CAT, and GPx. PCR quantified TNF-α expression to evaluate the protective effects and potential mechanisms of MD. The AGEs-induced osteoblast cell membrane chromatography-mass spectrometry method facilitated the rapid identification of potentially active compounds based on their affinity for the osteoblast cell membrane. Cell experiments further validated the activity of the characteristic component isovitexin.ResultsMD significantly improved cell viability in AGEs-damaged osteoblasts, enhanced ALP, SOD, CAT, and GPx activities, reduced MDA levels, increased OCN and RUNX2 protein expression, and decreased TNF-α mRNA and RAGE protein expression. Cell membrane chromatography identified 20 chemical constituents, including 13 flavonoids, 4 organic acids, 1 phenylpropanoids, 1 terpenoids, and 1 alkaloid. Cell experiments have confirmed that isovitexin has significant protective activity against osteoblasts and can inhibit the expression of specific receptor RAGE on the osteoblast membrane, consistent with the effect of MD.ConclusionMD and its active component, isovitexin, provide protective effects against AGEs-induced osteoblast injury, offering a basis for subsequent drug development.

Current knowledge graph-based recommendation methods heavily rely on high-quality knowledge graphs, often falling short in effectively addressing issues such as the cold start problem and heterogeneous noise in user interactions. This leads to biases in user interest and popularity. To overcome these challenges, this paper introduces a novel recommendation approach termed Knowledge-enhanced Perceptive Graph Attention with Graph Contrastive Learning (KPA-GCL), which leverages relational graph convolutional neural networks. The proposed method optimizes the triplet embedding representation of entity-item interactions based on relationships between adjacent entities in a heterogeneous graph. Subsequently, a graph convolutional neural network is employed for enhanced aggregation. Similarity scores from a contrastive view serve as the selection criterion for high-quality embedded representations, facilitating the extraction of refined knowledge subgraphs. Multiple adaptive contrast-loss optimization functions are introduced by combining Bayesian Personalized Ranking (BPR) and hard negative sampling techniques. Comparative experiments are conducted with ten popular existing methods using real public datasets. Results indicate that the KPA-GCL method outperforms compared methods in all datasets based on Recall, NDCG, Precision, and Hit-ratio measures. Furthermore, in terms of mitigating cold start and noise, the KPA-GCL method surpasses other ten methods. This validates the reasonability and effectiveness of KPA-GCL in real-world datasets.

Abstract Objective To create a deep‐learning automatic segmentation model for esophageal cancer (EC), metastatic lymph nodes (MLNs) and their adjacent structures using the UperNet Swin network and computed tomography angiography (CTA) images and to improve the effectiveness and precision of EC automatic segmentation and TN stage diagnosis. Methods Attention U‐Net, UperNet Swin, UNet++ and UNet were used to train the EC segmentation model to automatically segment the EC, esophagus, pericardium, aorta and MLN from CTA images of 182 patients with postoperative pathologically proven EC. The Dice similarity coefficient (DSC), sensitivity, and positive predictive value (PPV) were used to assess their segmentation effectiveness. The volume of EC was calculated using the segmentation results, and the outcomes and times of automatic and human segmentation were compared. All statistical analyses were completed using SPSS 25.0 software. Results Among the four EC autosegmentation models, the UperNet Swin had the best autosegmentation results with a DSC of 0.7820 and the highest values of EC sensitivity and PPV. The esophagus, pericardium, aorta and MLN had DSCs of 0.7298, 0.9664, 0.9496 and 0.5091. The DSCs of the UperNet Swin were 0.6164, 0.7842, 0.8190, and 0.7259 for T1‐4 EC. The volume of EC and its adjacent structures between the ground truth and UperNet Swin model were not significantly different. Conclusions The UperNet Swin showed excellent efficiency in autosegmentation and volume measurement of EC, MLN and its adjacent structures in different T stage, which can help to T and N stage diagnose EC and will save clinicians time and energy.

As an effective treatment for diabetes, islet transplantation has garnered significant attention and research in recent years. However, immune rejection and the toxicity of immunosuppressive drugs remain critical factors influencing the success of islet transplantation. While immunosuppressants are essential in reducing immune rejection reactions and can significantly improve the survival rate of islet transplants, improper use of these drugs can markedly increase mortality rates following transplantation. Additionally, the current availability of islet organ donations fails to meet the demand for organ transplants, making xenotransplantation a crucial method for addressing organ shortages. This review will cover the following three aspects: 1) the immune responses occurring during allogeneic islet transplantation, including three stages: inflammation and IBMIR, allogeneic immune response, and autoimmune recurrence; 2) commonly used immunosuppressants in allogeneic islet transplantation, including calcineurin inhibitors (Cyclosporine A, Tacrolimus), mycophenolate mofetil, glucocorticoids, and Bortezomib; and 3) early and late immune responses in xenogeneic islet transplantation and the immune effects of triple therapy (ECDI-fixed donor spleen cells (ECDI-SP) + anti-CD20 + Sirolimus) on xenotransplantation.

Background: To investigate the diagnostic value of computed tomography (CT)-guided aspiration biopsy combined with rapid field evaluation for pulmonary lesions. Methods: The PubMed and EMBASE databases were searched systematically for studies related to the diagnosis of lung lesions by CT-guided puncture biopsy combined with a rapid on-site indexed through October 2022. The updated Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (QUADAS-2) tool was applied as the main method to assess the risk of bias and applicability of the studies. Meta-analysis software was used to perform heterogeneity tests on the data. Based on the heterogeneity results, the appropriate effect model was selected to calculate the overall sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), and to plot the summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curve, forest plot, and funnel plot. The results of the analysis of six studies (n=951) using a random-effects model showed pooled sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic odds ratio with 95% confidence intervals of 94%, 95%, and 159.05, respectively, with an SROC AUC of 0.98. Further analysis of the four studies that established control groups showed that the sampling adequacy and diagnostic accuracy in the ROSE group were 12% and 13% higher than those in the non-ROSE group. In conclusion, CT-guided puncture biopsy combined with rapid on-site evaluation is a practical and feasible method for diagnosing pulmonary lesions and can be used as an important clinical diagnostic method.

Perforation of the tympanic membrane (TM) is a common condition that often requires a scaffold as a support for surgery. However, because of the external environment of the auditory canal, the scaffold could become bacterially infected and prevent the TM from healing. As a result, the perfect scaffold should have both antibacterial and biomimetic qualities. In this study, the biodegradable biomaterial poly(1,4-butylene carbonate) (PBC) films containing levofloxacin (LEV) was successfully prepared for the first time. The results showed that the hydrophilicity of the LEV/PBC film was improved after the addition of LEV, and the tensile strength was also complied with the requirements of the standard. The created antibacterial film demonstrated excellent antibacterial properties. In vitro hemolysis experiments revealed no risk of hemolysis for the new material, and the cytotoxicity study further confirmed its non-cytotoxic nature. Overall, LEV was a good component of PBC/LEV film, which is expected to be used for TM repair in the future.

In recent years, significant advancements in nanotechnology have yielded remarkable improvements in biomedical applications. Nanocarriers, harnessed from the principles of nanotechnology, have garnered widespread utilization in medicine delivery and diagnostics. However, the progression of nanocarriers has been hindered by two key challenges: low drug loading capacity and the potential for carrier-induced toxicity. To surmount these obstacles, the rapid development and expansion of carrier-free drug delivery systems (CFDDSs) composed of pure drugs and prodrugs have emerged as a promising solution. Extensive endeavors have been undertaken to explore novel excipients, therapeutic agents, self-assembly processes, and therapeutic mechanisms, aimed at expanding the horizons of CFDDSs and enhancing their therapeutic efficacy. This comprehensive review provides an overview of CFDDSs, elucidating their self-assembly mechanisms. Additionally, we examine their diverse biomedical applications while shedding light on the challenges ahead for the future development and clinical implementation of CFDDSs. This review serves to enhance our understanding of the intricate mechanisms governing drug nanoassembly formation and fosters the advancement of CFDDSs in the expansive realm of biomedical research.

The differential tracking for a given signal is a well-known and challenging problem in control theory and practice. In this note, we introduce a novel method to design the differentiators. The proposed differentiator, in contrast to existing differentiators that take the form of a dynamical system, is represented through convolutions. This idea is primarily inspired by the mollifier technique, which is well-known in the theory of partial differential equations. Both the weighted moving average technique and the mollifier technique are used in the differentiator’s design. By the proper choice of the kernel function, we can obtain the derivative of the given signal by integrating rather than differentiating the signal itself directly. As a result, the proposed tracking differentiators can be robust to the high-frequency signals. Although our approach is simple, it is very effective, both for the real time signals and the time delayed signals.

In this paper, a method for orthogonal tensor recovery based on non-convex regularization and rank estimation (OTRN-RE) is proposed, which aims to accurately recover the low-rank and sparse components of the tensor. Specifically, a new low-rank tensor decomposition algorithm is designed, which can efficiently establish the equivalence between the rank of a large tensor before decomposition and the rank of the coefficient tensor after decomposition. The large tensor is decomposed into a small standard orthogonal tensor and another coefficient tensor, and a generalized non-convex regularization is used to inscribe the low rank of the coefficient tensor. Meanwhile, a new rank estimation strategy is developed to dynamically adjust the size of small orthogonal tensors and coefficient tensors. Experimental results on image denoising and salient object detection tasks confirm the state-of-the-art performance of the proposed method in terms of denoising capability and computational speed.

AbstractContext Gualou Guizhi decoction (GLGZD) is an ancient Chinese classical prescription widely used to treat ischemic stroke. However, the molecular mechanisms of GLGZD promoting angiogenesis are unavailable.Objective This study investigates the angiogenesis effect of GLGZD as well as its mechanism.Materials and methods Ischemic stroke was established by middle cerebral artery occlusion/reperfusion (MCAO/R) in male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats. The GLGZD groups received GLGZD (3.6, 7.2 and 14.4 g/kg) orally. Oxygen-glucose deprivation/reoxygenation (OGD/R) model was constructed in HUVECs receiving GLGZD medicated serum (MS). MRI, H&E staining, qRT-PCR, western blot and immunofluorescence methods were employed. miRNA210 inhibitor was employed to confirm the effects of GLGZD on promoting angiogenesis. Dual luciferase assay was used to verify the binding of miRNA210 with HIF mRNA.Results GLGZD treatment improved neurological function (by 27%), alleviated neuronal injury (by 76%), reduced infarct volume (by 74%) and increased microvessel density (by fourfold) in vivo. In vitro data had also shown that GLGZD caused proliferation of the cells (by 58%), their migration, and eventual formation of tubes (by threefold). Simultaneously, GLGZD enhanced the levels of angiogenesis-related molecules and activated the HIF/VEGF signalling pathway. Surprisingly, the beneficial effects of GLGZD on post-stroke angiogenesis and neurological recovery were weakened by miRNA210 inhibitor, and also abolished the mediation of proangiogenic factors. miRNA210 directly targeted HIF mRNA.Discussion and conclusions GLGZD enhances angiogenesis via activation of the miRNA210/HIF/VEGF signalling pathway, suggesting it can be a novel application as an effective angiogenic formula for stroke recovery.

PURPOSETo determine whether the morphological parameters of prostate zones and tumors on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can predict the tumor-stage (T-stage) of prostate cancer (PCa) and establish an optimal T-stage diagnosis protocol based on three-dimensional reconstruction and quantization after image segmentation.METHODSA dataset of the prostate MRI scans and clinical data of 175 patients who underwent biopsy and had pathologically proven PCa from January 2018 to November 2020 was retrospectively analyzed. The authors manually segmented and measured the volume, major axis, and cross-sectional area of the peripheral zone (PZ), transition zone, central zone (CZ), anterior fibromuscular stroma, and tumor. The differences were evaluated by the One-Way analysis of variance, Pearson’s chi-squared test, or independent samples t-test. Spearman’s correlation coefficient and receiver operating characteristic curve analyses were also performed. The cut-off values of the T-stage diagnosis were generated using Youden’s J index.RESULTSThe prostate volume (PV), PZ volume (PZV), CZ volume, tumor’s major axis (TA), tumor volume (TV), and volume ratio of the TV and PV were significantly different among stages T1 to T4. The cut-off values of the PV, PZV, CZV, TA, TV, and the ratio of TV/PV for the discrimination of the T1 and T2 stages were 53.63 cm3, 11.60 cm3, 1.97 cm3, 2.30 mm, 0.90 cm3, and 0.03 [area under the curves (AUCs): 0.628, 0.658, 0.610, 0.689, 0.724, and 0.764], respectively. The cut-off values of the TA, TV, and the ratio of TV/PV for the discrimination of the T2 and T3 stages were 2.80 mm, 8.29 cm3, and 0.12 (AUCs: 0.769, 0.702, and 0.688), respectively. The cut-off values of the TA, TV, and the ratio of TV/PV for the discrimination of the T3 and T4 stages were 4.17 mm, 18.71 cm3, and 0.22 (AUCs: 0.674, 0.709, and 0.729), respectively.CONCLUSIONThe morphological parameters of the prostate zones and tumors on the MRIs are simple and valuable diagnostic factors for predicting the T-stage of patients with PCa, which can help make accurate diagnoses and lateral treatment decisions.

Cognitive impairment is a core feature of schizophrenia, playing a pivotal role in the pathogenesis and prognosis of this disorder. Cognitive impairment in schizophrenia encompasses a wide range of domains, including processing speed, episodic memory, working memory, and executive function. These deficits persist throughout the course of the illness and significantly impact functional outcomes and quality of life. Therefore, it is imperative to identify the biological basis of cognitive deficits in schizophrenia and develop effective treatments. The role of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors in synaptic transmission and plasticity has long been recognized, making them potential targets for schizophrenia treatment. This review will focus on emerging pharmacology targeting NMDA receptors, offering strategies for the prevention and treatment of cognitive deficits in schizophrenia.

Shaker potassium channel proteins are a class of voltage-gated ion channels responsible for K+ uptake and translocation, playing a crucial role in plant growth and salt tolerance. In this study, bioinformatic analysis was performed to identify the members within the Shaker gene family. Moreover, the expression patterns of rice Shaker(OsShaker) K+ channel genes were analyzed in different tissues and salt treatment by RT–qPCR. The results revealed that there were eight OsShaker K+ channel genes distributed on chromosomes 1, 2, 5, 6 and 7 in rice, and their promoters contained a variety of cis-regulatory elements, including hormone-responsive, light-responsive, and stress-responsive elements, etc. Most of the OsShaker K+ channel genes were expressed in all tissues of rice, but at different levels in different tissues. In addition, the expression of OsShaker K+ channel genes differed in the timing, organization and intensity of response to salt and chilling stress. In conclusion, our findings provide a reference for the understanding of OsShaker K+ channel genes, as well as their potential functions in response to salt and chilling stress in rice.

BackgroundThis retrospective observational cohort study aimed to evaluate whether tenecteplase’s use for acute ischemic stroke (AIS) has time management advantages and clinical benefits.Methods144 AIS patients treated with alteplase and 120 with tenecteplase were included. We compared baseline clinical characteristics, key reperfusion therapy time indices [onset-to-treatment time (OTT), door-to-needle time (DNT), and door-to-puncture time (DPT)] and clinical outcomes (24-h post-thrombolysis NIHSS improvement, and intracranial hemorrhage incidence) between the groups using univariate analysis. We assessed hospital stay durations and used binary logistic regression to examine tenecteplase’s association with DNT and DPT target times, NIHSS improvement, and intracranial hemorrhage.ResultsBaseline characteristics showed no significant differences except hyperlipidemia and atrial fibrillation. OTT (133 vs. 163.72, p = 0.001), DNT (36.5 vs. 50, p

Community detection in complex networks often suffers from insufficient data and limited utilization of prior knowledge. In this paper we propose “Semi-supervised Generative Adversarial Network” (GANSE), a novel algorithm that integrates Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and semi-supervised learning to address these challenges. This method addresses the issues above through a multi-step process. Initially, the network is rewired using vertex similarity metrics, thereby enhancing its structural integrity. Subsequently, a novel generative adversarial network model is designed, and our model facilitates the reconstruction of the network, thereby yielding partitions. Which form the basis for identifying core communities. Additionally, the local clustering coefficient is incorporated as a reward signal and injected into the node selection process. Moreover, isolated nodes are reallocated, ultimately culminating in the derivation of the final community structure. Experimental results on four large real-life datasets demonstrate the clear superiority of the proposed algorithm in terms of F1 and Jaccard metrics when compared to existing algorithms. Notably, our GANSE method outperforms the traditional algorithms in networks with “missing data”. Thus showing its robustness and effectiveness in real-world incomplete datasets. Our findings highlight the potential of GANs and semi-supervised learning for enhancing community detection accuracy in complex networks.

Salt and drought stress has been an important factor limiting agricultural production, and SA is an important phenolic involved in stress response, but the function of SA in response to dual salt and drought stress in rice is not clear. In this study, the effects and mechanisms of exogenous SA-triggered in rice adaptation to dual salt and drought stress were investigated by detecting physiological and biochemical indexes and the expression of salt and drought tolerance genes. The results showed that the application of SA could significantly increase the antioxidant enzyme activities of rice seedlings under salt and drought stress, thereby reducing the contents of rice H2O2 and MDA and maintaining the growth of rice seedlings. Moreover, the expression of genes involved in the response of abiotic stress, such as OsDREB2A, OsSAPK8, OsSAPK10 and OsMYB2, were up-regulated under salt and drought treatment, and SA application could further enhance the expression of those genes like OsDREB2A and OsSAPK8, suggesting that SA might regulate antioxidant enzyme activity via inducing the expression of salt and drought tolerance genes and enhancing the salt and drought tolerance of rice. The results will enrich the knowledge of the function of SA and provide a reference for studying the mechanism of SA in the salt and drought resistance of rice, and breeding new rice germplasm with improved salt and drought resistance.

The root microbiota plays a crucial role in assisting the plant host in combating various biotic and abiotic stresses, notably drought, which poses a significant threat to global food security. Despite extensive efforts to understand the shifts in rhizosphere and endosphere bacteriomes, there remains a gap in comprehending how drought stress influences the co-occurring network patterns within these compartments and their ecological functional potentials. To address this gap, a pot experiment was conducted with two treatments: continuous flooding as a control and drought treatment. Bulk soil, rhizosphere, and endosphere samples were collected and subjected to high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics analysis. The results revealed that drought stress significantly reduced the rice biomass but increased the Shannon diversity index in both the rhizosphere and endosphere bacterial communities with no observable effect on richness across compartments. Additionally, drought treatment markedly altered the community structure and bacterial assemblages in these compartments, resulting in the specific enrichment of Actinobacteriota, Gemmatimonadetes, and Patescibacteria, while Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes were depleted in the rhizosphere and endosphere. Furthermore, drought heightened the complexity of the co-occurring networks and the proportions of positive links across all sampling compartments; this effect was accompanied by an increase in the number of connectors in the bulk soil and rhizosphere, as well as module hubs in the rhizosphere. Functional potential prediction indicated that drought stress significantly altered multiple potential ecological functions across all sampling compartments, particularly enriching functions related to the oxidation of sulfur, manganese, and hydrogen in the bulk soil, while functions associated with iron oxidation were significantly depleted in the rhizosphere. Overall, our results demonstrate that under drought stress, rice may specifically enrich certain bacterial taxa and enhance their positive interactions within its root system to improve adaptation.

Glioblastoma is the most common and malignant primary brain tumor, with high morbidity and mortality. Despite an aggressive, multimodal treatment regimen, including surgical resection followed by chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the prognosis of glioblastoma patients remains poor. One formidable challenge to advancing glioblastoma therapy is the complexity of the tumor microenvironment. The tumor microenvironment of glioblastoma is a highly dynamic and heterogeneous system that consists of not only cancerous cells but also various resident or infiltrating inflammatory cells. These inflammatory cells not only provide a unique tumor environment for glioblastoma cells to develop and grow but also play important roles in regulating tumor aggressiveness and treatment resistance. Targeting the tumor microenvironment, especially neuroinflammation, has increasingly been recognized as a novel therapeutic approach in glioblastoma. In this review, we discuss the components of the tumor microenvironment in glioblastoma, focusing on neuroinflammation. We discuss the interactions between different tumor microenvironment components as well as their functions in regulating glioblastoma pathogenesis and progression. We will also discuss the anti-tumor microenvironment interventions that can be employed as potential therapeutic targets.

This paper attempts to initiate the study of covers of finitely generated S-acts over monoids. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for a monoid to ensure that n-generated S-acts have strongly flat covers, Condition (P) covers, and projective covers. The main conclusions extend some known results. We also show that Condition (P) covers of finitely generated S-acts are not unique, unlike strongly flat covers. Additionally, we demonstrate the property of Enochs’ X-precover of S-act A, where X denotes a class of S-acts that are closed under isomorphisms.

Abstract Objectives To statistically study the 3D shape of oesophageal cancer (EC) and its spatial relationships based on computed tomography angiography (CTA) 3D reconstruction, to determine its relationship with T‐stages, and to create an optimal T‐stage diagnosis protocol based on CTA calculation. Methods Pre‐operative CTA images of 155 patients with EC were retrospectively collected and divided into four groups: T1–T4. We used Amira software to segment and 3D reconstruct the EC, oesophagus, aorta, pericardium and peripheral lymph nodes and measured their surface area, volume, major axis, minor axis, longitudinal length, roughness and relationship to the aorta of the EC. One‐way ANOVA, independent sample t‐test, ROC, etc., were performed and critical values between different T‐stages were calculated. We also invited two radiologists to evaluate the measurements. Results There were no significant differences in EC longitudinal length, roughness score and relationship with the aorta between the different T‐stages of EC. There were significant differences in EC surface area, EC volume and mean major and minor axis among the different T‐stages. The volumes of the T1–T4 tumours were 12,934.36 ± 7739.25, 23,095.27 ± 14,975.67, 37,577.98 ± 36,085.64 and 58,579.25 ± 41,073.96 mm3 separately (p

Noninvasive coronary fractional flow reserve derived from CT angiography (FFRCT) is a major advance within cardiovascular imaging in recent years. It can identify pathology-specific ischemia and provide information for clinical decisions on revascularization, serving as a gatekeeper for invasive coronary angiography.This paper reviews the research progress of FFRCT and briefly discusses its limitations.

Nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems hold promise for cancer treatment by enhancing the solubility and stability of anti-tumor drugs. Nonetheless, the challenges of inadequate targeting and limited biocompatibility persist. In recent years, cell membrane nano-biomimetic drug delivery systems have emerged as a focal point of research and development, due to their exceptional traits, including precise targeting, low toxicity, and good biocompatibility. This review outlines the categorization and advantages of cell membrane bionic nano-delivery systems, provides an introduction to preparation methods, and assesses their applications in cancer treatment, including chemotherapy, gene therapy, immunotherapy, photodynamic therapy, photothermal therapy, and combination therapy. Notably, the review delves into the challenges in the application of various cell membrane bionic nano-delivery systems and identifies opportunities for future advancement. Embracing cell membrane-coated biomimetic nanoparticles presents a novel and unparalleled avenue for personalized tumor therapy.

Fatty acyl-CoA reductase (FAR) is an important NADPH-dependent enzyme that can produce primary alcohol from fatty acyl-CoA or fatty acyl-carrier proteins as substrates. It plays a pivotal role in plant growth, development, and stress resistance. Herein, we performed genome-wide identification and expression analysis of FAR members in rice using bioinformatics methods. A total of eight OsFAR genes were identified, and the OsFARs were comprehensively analyzed in terms of phylogenetic relationships, duplication events, protein motifs, etc. The cis-elements of the OsFARs were predicted to respond to growth and development, light, hormones, and abiotic stresses. Gene ontology annotation analysis revealed that OsFAR proteins participate in biological processes as fatty acyl-CoA reductase during lipid metabolism. Numerous microRNA target sites were present in OsFARs mRNAs. The expression analysis showed that OsFARs were expressed at different levels during different developmental periods and in various tissues. Furthermore, the expression levels of OsFARs were altered under abiotic stresses, suggesting that FARs may be involved in abiotic stress tolerance in rice. The findings presented here serve as a solid basis for further exploring the functions of OsFARs.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common and malignant type of primary brain tumor in adults. Despite important advances in understanding the molecular pathogenesis and biology of this tumor in the past decade, the prognosis for GBM patients remains poor. GBM is characterized by aggressive biological behavior and high degrees of inter-tumor and intra-tumor heterogeneity. Increased understanding of the molecular and cellular heterogeneity of GBM may not only help more accurately define specific subgroups for precise diagnosis but also lay the groundwork for the successful implementation of targeted therapy. Herein, we systematically review the key achievements in the understanding of GBM molecular pathogenesis, mechanisms, and biomarkers in the past decade. We discuss the advances in the molecular pathology of GBM, including genetics, epigenetics, transcriptomics, and signaling pathways. We also review the molecular biomarkers that have potential clinical roles. Finally, new strategies, current challenges, and future directions for discovering new biomarkers and therapeutic targets for GBM will be discussed.

BackgroundPost-operative etiological studies are critical for infection prevention in lung transplant recipients within the first year. In this study, mNGS combined with microbial culture was applied to reveal the etiological characteristics within one week (ultra-early) and one month (early) in lung transplant recipients, and the epidemiology of infection occurred within one month.MethodsIn 38 lung transplant recipients, deep airway secretions were collected through bronchofiberscope within two hours after the operation and were subjected to microbial identification by mNGS and microbial culture. The etiologic characteristics of lung transplant recipients were explored. Within one month, the infection status of recipients was monitored. The microbial species detected by mNGS were compared with the etiological agents causing infection within one month.ResultsThe detection rate of mNGS in the 38 airway secretions specimens was significantly higher than that of the microbial culture (P

Single-image haze removal is a challenging ill-posed problem. Recently, methods based on training on synthetic data have achieved good dehazing results. However, we note that these methods can be further improved. A novel deep learning-based method is proposed to obtain a better-dehazed result for single-image dehazing in this paper. Specially, we propose a dual multi-scale network to learn the dehazing knowledge from synthetical data. The coarse multi-scale network is designed to capture a large variety of objects, and then fine multi-scale blocks are designed to capture a small variety of objects at each scale. To show the effectiveness of the proposed method, we perform experiments on a synthetic dataset and real hazy images. Extensive experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods.

The purpose of grasp pattern recognition is to determine the grasp type for an object to be grasped, which can be applied to prosthetic hand control and ease the burden of amputees. To enhance the performance of grasp pattern recognition, we propose a network DL-Net inspired by dictionary learning. Our method includes two parts: 1) forward propagation for sparsity representation learning and 2) backward propagation for dictionary learning, which utilizes the sparsity prior effectively and learns a discriminative dictionary with stronger expressive ability from a mass of training data. The experiment was performed on two household object datasets, the RGB-D Object dataset, and the Hit-GPRec dataset. The experimental results illustrate that the DL-Net performs better than traditional deep learning methods in grasp pattern recognition.

Abstract Genome variation not only plays an important role in plant phenotypic modeling and adaptive evolution, but also enhances population genetic diversity and regulates gene expression. The tea tree (Camellia sinensis) has a large genome (~ 3.0 Gb), making the identification of genome-wide variants time-consuming and expensive. With the continuous publication of a large number of different types of population sequencing data, there is a lack of an open platform to integrate these data and identify variants in the tea plant genome. To integrate the genetic variation confidence in the tea plant population genome, 238 whole-genome resequencing, 213 transcriptome sequencing, and 96 hybrid F1 individuals with a total of more than 20 Tb were collected for mutation site identification. Based on these variations information, we constructed the first tea tree variation web service database TeaPVs ( http://47.106.184.91:8025/ and http://liushang.top:8025/ ). It supports users to search all SNP, Indel, SV mutations and SSR/Polymorphic SSR sequences by location or gene ID. Furthermore, the website also provides the functions of gene expression search of different transcriptome, sequence blast, sequence extraction of CDS and mutation loci, etc. The features of the TeaPVs database make it a comprehensive tea plant genetic variation bioinformatics platform for researchers, and will also be helpful for revealing new functional mutations in the tea plant genome and molecular marker-assisted breeding.

The study of hyporheic exchange involves the physical mechanism, influencing factors and biochemical effects on the interaction of a surface water-groundwater system, which is a hot research topic in recent years in the disciplines of hydrology, ecology and environmental science. The process of hyporheic exchange includes water movement, solute transport and energy transfer process. The research of hyporheic exchange under the steady-state flow conditions as the controlling factor can no longer meet the requirements of the development of related disciplines. Therefore, the research on the unsteady hyporheic exchange processes and its results have attracted attention in recent years. The current research is mostly based on physical model tests (e. g., indoor flume tests, tracer tests), supplemented by numerical simulations or remote sensing techniques for validation, and then summarizes the laws of hydrodynamic and energy exchange processes during the unsteady hyporheic exchange. Future research will integrate multiple high-precision monitoring tools at multiple spatial and temporal scales to study the influencing factors in hyporheic exchange (e. g., river level fluctuations), develop more accurate coupled surface water-groundwater models, and systematically understand the unsteady hyporheic exchange processes. The findings of the unsteady hyporheic exchange will effectively guide water resources protection and ecological restoration and comprehensive management.

To understand the detoxification effect of biochemical fulvic acid (BFA) on Quasipaa boulengeri (Q.boulengeri ) tadpoles under copper stress, effects of different concentrations of BFA on growth and physiological indexes of tadpoles. The results showed that the survival rate of tadpoles increased with the increase of BFA concentration. With the increase of BFA concentration, the growth rate of body weight and body length reached the peak at 45 mg/L; The superoxide dismutase(SOD) showed a downward trend in the control group (CK) and an upward trend in each treatment group, with significant difference between the treatment groups (P < 0.05); The content of the malondialdehyde(MDA) and the treatment time and concentration of BFA showed an upward trend in CK group. With the increase of BFA concentration and the content of the MDA decreased, there was significant difference between the treatment groups (P < 0.05). In conclusion, BFA can be used as a detoxification agent under copper stress, and the suitable concentration of BFA is 45 mg/L. This study provides a theoretical basis for the artificial breeding and scientific protection of Q.boulengeri tadpoles.

Stearoyl-acyl carrier protein (ACP) Δ9 desaturase (SAD) is a critical fatty acid dehydrogenase in plants, playing a prominent role in regulating the synthesis of unsaturated fatty acids (UFAs) and having a significant impact on plant growth and development. In this study, we conducted a comprehensive genomic analysis of the SAD family in barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), identifying 14 HvSADs with the FA_desaturase_2 domain, which were divided into four subgroups based on sequence composition and phylogenetic analysis, with members of the same subgroup possessing similar genes and motif structures. Gene replication analysis suggested that tandem and segmental duplication may be the major reasons for the expansion of the SAD family in barley. The promoters of HvSADs contained various cis-regulatory elements (CREs) related to light, abscisic acid (ABA), and methyl jasmonate (MeJA). In addition, expression analysis indicated that HvSADs exhibit multiple tissue expression patterns in barley as well as different response characteristics under three abiotic stresses: salt, drought, and cold. Briefly, this evolutionary and expression analysis of HvSADs provides insight into the biological functions of barley, supporting a comprehensive analysis of the regulatory mechanisms of oil biosynthesis and metabolism in plants under abiotic stress.

BackgroundHuman Parvovirus B19 (PB19) is a single-stranded DNA virus. Septic shock from viremia is rare with PB19; however, this infection can progress to life-threatening conditions. We report the first case of severe septic shock associated with a PB19 infection after cardiac surgery.Case PresentationA 50-year-old Chinese woman received elective double metal valve replacement, including the aortic valve and the mitral valve, under cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) and suffered severe septic shock on postoperative day (PD) 30. Through the detection of PB19-specific nucleic acids in blister fluid and serum samples via metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS), positive serum PB19 IgM and no other proven infection, acute PB19 infection was confirmed. After five days of combined treatment, no further fever or abdominal discomfort was noted, and the patient’s circulation gradually became stable without vasoactive medications.ConclusionPB19 may be an unrecognized cause of septic shock, rash, fever of unknown origin or multiple systemic signs and symptoms, especially in immunosuppressed and immunocompetent critically ill patients. Investigations for viral aetiology are needed.

Summary: Hyperactivity of pyramidal neurons (PNs) in CA1 is an early event in Alzheimer’s disease. However, factors accounting for the hyperactivity of CA1 PNs remain to be completely investigated. In the present study, we report that the serotonergic signaling is abnormal in the hippocampus of hAPP-J20 mice. Interestingly, chemogenetic activation of serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine; 5-HT) neurons in the median raphe nucleus (MRN) attenuates the activity of CA1 PNs in hAPP-J20 mice by regulating the intrinsic properties or inhibitory synaptic transmission of CA1 PNs through 5-HT3aR and/or 5-HT1aR. Furthermore, activating MRN 5-HT neurons improves memory in hAPP-J20 mice, and this effect is mediated by 5-HT3aR and 5-HT1aR. Direct activation of 5-HT3aR and 5-HT1aR with their selective agonists also improves the memory of hAPP-J20 mice. Together, we identify the impaired 5-HT/5-HT3aR and/or 5-HT/5-HT1aR signaling as pathways contributing to the hyperexcitability of CA1 PNs and the impaired cognition in hAPP-J20 mice.

The MADS-box gene family plays key roles in flower induction, floral initiation, and floral morphogenesis in flowering plants. To understand their functions in the double-flower formation of Prunus campanulata ‘Plena’ (hereafter referred to as PCP), which is an excellent flowering cherry cultivar, we performed genome-wide identification of the MADS-box gene family. In this study, 71 MADS-box genes were identified and grouped into the Mα, Mβ, Mγ and MIKC subfamilies according to their structures and phylogenetic relationships. All 71 MADS-box genes were located on eight chromosomes of PCP. Analysis of the cis-acting elements in the promoter region of MADS-box genes indicated that they were associated mainly with auxin, abscisic acid, gibberellin, MeJA (methyl jasmonate), and salicylic acid responsiveness, which may be involved in floral development and differentiation. By observing the floral organ phenotype, we found that the double-flower phenotype of PCP originated from petaloid stamens. The analysis of MIKC-type MADS-box genes in PCP vegetative and floral organs by qRT–PCR revealed six upregulated genes involved in petal development and three downregulated genes participating in stamen identity. Comparative analysis of petaloid stamens and normal stamens also indicated that the expression level of the AG gene (PcMADS40) was significantly reduced. Thus, we speculated that these upregulated and downregulated genes, especially PcMADS40, may lead to petaloid stamen formation and thus double flowers. This study lays a theoretical foundation for MADS-box gene identification and classification and studying the molecular mechanism underlying double flowers in other ornamental plants.

Single image deraining aims to remove rain streaks from a degraded input and reconstruct a high-quality image. In recent years, image processing tasks mostly applied a U-shaped architecture to capture rich contextual information. However, it is difficult to achieve long-range pixel dependencies because of the local receptive field of the convolution operation. In this paper, we propose a deep feature interactive aggregation network for single image deraining to enhance long-range dependencies among features and realize the interaction of information. To fully utilize high-level semantic features, we design a long-range dependency feature aggregation module to significantly improve the representational ability of the original U-shaped architecture. It aggregates multi-scale features and calculates the interactive attention of non-overlapping patches among feature maps. In addition, we adopt group normalization to retain the independence of each given image. It interacts with the information among features in an individual image and normalizes the channels of each group to weaken the correlation between batch data processing. Experimental results on widely acknowledged datasets also demonstrate the superiority of our proposed network over previous state-of-the-art methods.

With the popularity of IoT devices and cloud technology in the medical industry. Sharing EHRs (Electronic Health Records) among medical institutions improves the accuracy of medical diagnosis and promotes the development of public medical. However, it is difficult to share EHRs among hospitals, and patients typically don’t know about the usage of their health records. In this paper, we propose a patient-controlled EHRs sharing scheme based on cloud computing collaborating blockchain technology. The medical abstract and the access strategy are stored in the blockchain to avoid being tampered with. To achieve the fine-grained access control, we propose the attribute-based encryption scheme and multi-keyword encryption scheme to encrypt EHRs. Moreover, we proposed a node-state-checkable Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance consensus algorithm (sc-PBFT) to prevent the Byzantine nodes from sneaking into the consortium blockchain. First, we check the state of the elected master node to avoid the master node having any malicious records. Then, using pre-prepared, prepare, and commit processes to complete the consensus request submitted by the client. At last, the proposed consensus algorithm evaluates the state of the master node according to the completion of the three-stage process to reduce the impact of the malicious node on the whole consortium blockchain. By doing this, the malicious node will be marked and isolated into the isolation area. The experimental results show that the proposed sc-PBFT algorithm has better handling capability and lower consensus latency. Compared with the PBFT algorithm in the case of Byzantine nodes, sc-PBFT not only improves the robustness of the consortium blockchain network but also improves the handling capability.

Population demography can change the network structure, which further plays an important role in the spreading of infectious disease. In this paper, we study the epidemic dynamics in temporal clustered networks where the local-world structure and clustering are incorporated into the attachment mechanism of new nodes. It is found that increasing the local-world size of new nodes has little influence on the clustering coefficient but increases the degree heterogeneity of networks. Besides, when the network evolves faster, increasing the local-world size of new nodes leads to a faster initial growth rate and a larger steady density of infectious nodes, while it has small impacts on the steady density of infectious disease when the network evolves slowly. Furthermore, if the average degree is fixed, increasing the probability of triad formation p enlarges the clustering coefficient of a network, which reduces the initial growth rate and steady density of infectious nodes in the network. This work could provide a theoretical foundation for the control of infectious disease.

Sucrose non-fermenting-1-related protein kinase 2 (SnRK2) is a class of plant-specific serine/threonine (Ser/Thr) protein kinase that plays an important role in rice stress tolerance, growth and development. However, systematic bioinformatics and expression pattern analysis have not been reported. In the current study, ten OsSnRK2 genes were identified in the rice genome and located on 7 chromosomes, which can be classified into three subfamilies (I, II, and III). Many cis-regulatory elements were identified in the promoter region of OsSnRK2 genes, including hormone response elements, defense and stress responsive elements, indicating that the OsSnRK2 family may play a crucial role in response to hormonal and abiotic stress. Quantitative tissue analysis showed that OsSnRK2 genes expressed in all tissues of rice, but the expression abundance varied from different tissues and showed varietal variability. In addition, expression pattern of OsSnRK2 were analyzed under abiotic stress (salt, drought, salt and drought) and showed obvious difference in diverse abiotic stress. In general, these results provide useful information for understanding the OsSnRK2 gene family and analyzing its functions in rice in response to ABA, salt and drought stress, especially salt-drought combined stress.

Abstract Amorphization and crystalline grain boundary engineering are adopted separately in improving the catalytic kinetics for water electrolysis. Yet, the synergistic effect and advance in the cooperated form of crystalline/amorphous interfaces (CAI) have rarely been elucidated insightfully. Herein, a trimetallic FeCo(NiS2)4 catalyst with numerous CAI (FeCo(NiS2)4‐C/A) is presented, which shows highly efficient catalytic activity toward both hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions (HER and OER). Density functional theory (DFT) studies reveal that CAI plays a significant role in accelerating water electrolysis kinetics, in which Co atoms on the CAI of FeCo(NiS2)4‐C/A catalyst exhibit the optimal binding energy of 0.002 eV for H atoms in HER while it also has the lowest reaction barrier of 1.40 eV for the key step of OER. H2O molecules are inclined to be absorbed on the interfacial Ni atoms based on DFT calculations. As a result, the heterostructural CAI‐containing catalyst shows a low overpotential of 82 and 230 mV for HER and OER, respectively. As a bifunctional catalyst, it delivers a current density of 10 mA cm−2 at a low cell voltage of 1.51 V, which enables it a noble candidate as metal‐based catalysts for water splitting. This work explores the role of CAI in accelerating the HER and OER kinetics for water electrolysis, which sheds light on the development of efficient, stable, and economical water electrolysis systems by facile interface‐engineering implantations.

The facile and low-cost fabrication of fluorine-free superhydrophobic metal surfaces for anticorrosion remains a challenging issue. Here, we report a superhydrophobic coating based on polyacrylate/SiO2 nanoparticles/graphene oxide sheets through a simple yet environmentally friendly method. The as-prepared composite coating sprayed on metal surfaces exhibits excellent superhydrophobic and corrosion-resistant properties. Furthermore, the coating surface possesses good anti-wear performance and remains superhydrophobic after harsh abrasion tests. Prospectively, the developed non-fluorinated superhydrophobic coating opens up opportunities for the application in industrial anticorrosion field.

The myoelectric prosthesis is a promising tool to restore the hand abilities of amputees, but the classification accuracy of surface electromyography (sEMG) is not high enough for real-time application. Researchers proposed integrating sEMG signals with another feature that is not affected by amputation. The strong coordination between vision and hand manipulation makes us consider including visual information in prosthetic hand control. In this study, we identified a sweet period during the early reaching phase in which the vision data could yield a higher accuracy in classifying the grasp patterns. Moreover, the visual classification results from the sweet period could be naturally integrated with sEMG data collected during the grasp phase. After the integration, the accuracy of grasp classification increased from 85.5% (only sEMG) to 90.06% (integrated). Knowledge gained from this study encourages us to further explore the methods for incorporating computer vision into myoelectric data to enhance the movement control of prosthetic hands.

Programmed necrosis is a new modulated cell death mode with necrotizing morphological characteristics. Receptor interacting protein 1 (RIPK1) is a critical mediator of the programmed necrosis pathway that is involved in stroke, myocardial infarction, fatal systemic inflammatory response syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease, and malignancy. At present, the reported inhibitors are divided into four categories. The first category is the type I ATP-competitive kinase inhibitors that targets the area occupied by the ATP adenylate ring; The second category is type Ⅱ ATP competitive kinase inhibitors targeting the DLG-out conformation of RIPK1; The third category is type Ⅲ kinase inhibitors that compete for binding to allosteric sites near ATP pockets; The last category is others. This paper reviews the structure, biological function, and recent research progress of receptor interaction protein-1 kinase inhibitors.

As bio-inspired vision devices, dynamic vision sensors (DVS) are being applied in more and more applications. Unlike normal cameras, pixels in DVS independently respond to the luminance change with asynchronous output spikes. Therefore, removing raindrops and streaks from DVS event videos is a new but challenging task as the conventional deraining methods are no longer applicable. In this article, we propose to perform the deraining process in the width and time (W-T) space. This is motivated by the observation that rain steaks exhibits discontinuity in the width and time directions while background moving objects are usually piecewise smooth along with both directions. The W-T space can fuse the discontinuity in both directions and thus transforms raindrops and streaks to approximately uniform noise that are easy to remove. The non-local means filter is adopted as background object motion has periodic patterns in the W-T space. A repairing method is also designed to restore edge details erased during the deraining process. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach can better remove rain noise than the four existing methods for traditional camera videos. We also study how the event buffer depth and event frame time affect the performance investigate the potential implementation of our approach to classic RGB images. A new real-world database for DVS deraining is also created and shared for public use.

Abstract Background The objective of the present study was to determine the effect of allisartan, a new angiotensin II type 1 receptor antagonist on vascular remodeling through voltage gated potassium channels (Kv7) in hypertensive rats. Methods The study included a total of 47 Sprague Dawley (SD) rats. The animals were randomized to sham operation (n = 14), untreated hypertensive control group (n = 18) and allisartan treatment group (n = 15). Using renal artery stenosis, hypertension was induced in animals. Single dose of allisartan was administered intra-gastrically to animals in the allisartan treatment group and match placebo in the other 2 groups. Wire myography was used to measure the muscle tension in isolated mesenteric arteries from the animals. Real-time polymerase chain reaction was used to quantify the expression of Kv7 channel mRNA subunits. Results After 4 weeks of treatment, a significant decrease in mean arterial, systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP and DBP) was observed in allisartan treatment group compared to hypertension control group. The median arterial wall thickness and area/diameter ratio reduced significantly in treatment group compared to untreated hypertension group (P

Increases in the proportion of amylose in the starch of wheat grains result in higher levels of resistant starch, a fermentable dietary fiber associated with human health benefits. The objective of this study was to assess the effect of combined mutations in five STARCH BRANCHING ENZYME II (SBEII) genes on starch composition, grain yield and bread-making quality in two hexaploid wheat varieties. Significantly higher amylose (∼60%) and resistant starch content (10-fold) was detected in the SBEII mutants than in the wild-type controls. Mutant lines showed a significant decrease in total starch (6%), kernel weight (3%) and total grain yield (6%). Effects of the mutations in bread-making quality included increases in grain hardness, starch damage, water absorption and flour protein content; and reductions in flour extraction, farinograph development and stability times, starch viscosity, and loaf volume. Several traits showed significant interactions between genotypes, varieties, and environments, suggesting that some of the negative impacts of the combined SBEII mutations can be ameliorated by adequate selection of genetic background and growing location. The deployment of wheat varieties with increased resistant starch will likely require economic incentives to compensate growers and millers for the significant reductions detected in grain and flour yields.

ObjectiveTo observe changes in blood pressure (ΔBP) and explore potential risk factors for high ΔBP among nurses working in a negative pressure isolation ward (NPIW).MethodsData from the single-center prospective observational study were used. Based on a routine practice plan, female nurses working in NPIW were scheduled to work for 4 days/week in different shifts, with each day working continuously for either 5 or 6 h. BP was measured when they entered and left NPIW. Multivariable logistic regression was used to assess potential risk factors in relation to ΔBP ≥ 5 mm Hg.ResultsA total of 84 nurses were included in the analysis. The ΔBP was found to fluctuate on different working days; no significant difference in ΔBP was observed between the schedules of 5 and 6 h/day. The standardized score from the self-rating anxiety scale (SAS) was significantly associated with an increased risk of ΔBP ≥ 5 mm Hg (odds ratio [OR] = 1.12, 95% CI: 1.00–1.24). Working 6 h/day (vs. 5 h/day) in NPIW was non-significantly related to decreased risk of ΔBP (OR = 0.70), while ≥ 2 consecutive working days (vs. 1 working day) was non-significantly associated with increased risk of ΔBP (OR = 1.50).ConclusionThis study revealed no significant trend for ΔBP by working days or working time. Anxiety was found to be significantly associated with increased ΔBP, while no

Abstract Background Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) has been the commonest renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Although the disease classification, diagnosis and targeted therapy of RCC has been increasingly evolving attributing to the rapid development of current molecular pathology, the current clinical treatment situation is still challenging considering the comprehensive and progressively developing nature of malignant cancer. The study is to identify more potential responsible genes during the development of ccRCC using bioinformatic analysis, thus aiding more precise interpretation of the disease Methods Firstly, different cDNA expression profiles from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) online database were used to screen the abnormal differently expressed genes (DEGs) between ccRCC and normal renal tissues. Then, based on the protein–protein interaction network (PPI) of all DEGs, the module analysis was performed to scale down the potential genes, and further survival analysis assisted our proceeding to the next step for selecting a credible key gene. Thirdly, immunohistochemistry (IHC) and quantitative real-time PCR (QPCR) were conducted to validate the expression change of the key gene in ccRCC comparing to normal tissues, meanwhile the prognostic value was verified using TCGA clinical data. Lastly, the potential biological function of the gene and signaling mechanism of gene regulating ccRCC development was preliminary explored. Results Four cDNA expression profiles were picked from GEO database based on the number of containing sample cases, and a total of 192 DEGs, including 39 up-regulated and 153 down-regulated genes were shared in four profiles. Based on the DEGs PPI network, four function modules were identified highlighting a FGF1 gene involving PI3K-AKT signaling pathway which was shared in 3/4 modules. Further, both the IHC performed with ccRCC tissue microarray which contained 104 local samples and QPCR conducted using 30 different samples confirmed that FGF1 was aberrant lost in ccRCC. And Kaplan–Meier overall survival analysis revealed that FGF1 gene loss was related to worse ccRCC patients survival. Lastly, the pathological clinical features of FGF1 gene and the probable biological functions and signaling pathways it involved were analyzed using TCGA clinical data. Conclusions Using bioinformatic analysis, we revealed that FGF1 expression was aberrant lost in ccRCC which statistical significantly correlated with patients overall survival, and the gene’s clinical features and potential biological functions were also explored. However, more detailed experiments and clinical trials are needed to support its potential drug-target role in clinical medical use.