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Background Aim Material and methods Results Conclusion During the COVID‐19 pandemic, mitigation measures were associated with a reduction in preterm birth rates; while not clearly proven, this observation has sparked significant interest.To understand the cause of this reduction by exploring the characteristics of preterm birth cohorts.We performed a retrospective cohort study where we compared women who delivered preterm in three Melbourne maternity hospitals and conceived between November 2019 and February 2020 (mitigation measures‐exposed cohort) to women who delivered preterm and conceived between November 2018 and February 2019 (non‐exposed cohort). We compared maternal characteristics, pregnancy complications, antenatal interventions, intrapartum care, and indications for delivery.In the exposed cohort, 252/3129 women delivered preterm (8.1%), vs 298/3154 (9.4%) in the non‐exposed cohort (odds ratio (OR) 0.84, 95% CI 0.70–1.00, P = 0.051). The baseline characteristic of two cohorts were comparable. Rates of spontaneous preterm labour (sPTL) without preterm pre‐labour rupture of membranes (PPROM) were lower in the exposed cohort (13.1% vs 24.2%, OR 0.47, P = 0.001) while PPROM occurred more often (48.0% vs 35.6%, OR 1.67, P = 0.003). With a non‐statistically significant prolongation of pregnancy in the cohort exposed to mitigation measures for both sPTL without PPROM (35.4 vs 34.9 weeks, P = 0.703) and PPROM (35.6 vs 34.9 weeks, P = 0.184). The rate of spontaneous labour after PPROM was higher in the exposed cohort compared to the non‐exposed cohort (40.1% vs 24.1%, OR 2.09, P < 0.001).The reduction in preterm delivery during mitigation measures may have been driven by a reduction in spontaneous labour without PPROM, which seemed to result in more PPROM later in pregnancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehensive Summary: This work describes a general method for the synthesis of a series of sulfenylated and selenylated carboranes at room temperature using readily available iodocarboranes as starting materials via boron‐centered carboranyl radicals. Such hypervalent boron radicals are generated by a visible‐light‐promoted Pd(0)/Pd(I) pathway. They are useful intermediates and can be trapped by disulfides and phenylselenyl chloride for the convenient construction of B—S/Se bonds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The protein WWOX was reported to be involved in cancer progression via interaction with mTOR and DNA repair pathway. We previously reported noteworthy association of some single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in mTOR and DNA repair pathways with gastric cancer (GCa) patients' survival. We hypothesized that genetic variants in WWOX gene could predict the survival of GCa patients. By extracting WWOX genetic variants from our ongoing genome‐wide association study including 796 GCa patients from an Eastern Chinese population, we identified 51 out of 1913 SNPs to be significantly associated with survival of GCa patients, which passed the false positive probability tests. In particular, the intronic variant rs9922483, a G>T change, was associated with 21% increased death risk for GCa patients (HR = 1.21, 95% CI = 1.04‐1.42, P =.015). This locus was predicted to be involved in potential enhancer by bioinformatics analysis. Genotype‐phenotype correlation analysis revealed decreased expression of WWOX by rs9922483 G>T change. Mechanistically, rs9922483 locus may exhibits long‐range interaction with WWOX promoter, and the G>T change inhibited the transcriptional activity driven by WWOX promoter in luciferase reporter system. Especially, the G>T change had an allele‐specific negative effect on NR3C1 binding, and NR3C1 promoted the expression of WWOX in GCa cells. Further functional analysis indicated an increase in proliferation, migration and invasion of GCa cells by knockdown of WWOX. In conclusion, WWOX genetic variants may modulate survival of Chinese GCa patients by exerting remote regulatory effect on WWOX expression. Our results highlight the cis‐regulatory effect of genetic variants on genes and survival modulation for GCa patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehensive Summary: This work describes a general method for the synthesis of a series of sulfenylated and selenylated carboranes at room temperature using readily available iodocarboranes as starting materials via boron‐centered carboranyl radicals. Such hypervalent boron radicals are generated by a visible‐light‐promoted Pd(0)/Pd(I) pathway. They are useful intermediates and can be trapped by disulfides and phenylselenyl chloride for the convenient construction of B—S/Se bonds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seed banks are fundamentally important components of the wetland ecosystem. Water levels on germination in soil seed banks have been documented in many ecosystems. However, there is a lack of knowledge about water levels on seed banks in freshwater wetlands, especially in those buried by sedimentation. Three burial depths (0–5 cm, 5–10 cm and 10–15 cm) within five water level gradient zones along the elevation in Poyang Lake, Eastern China, were sampled. The seedling-emergence method in a greenhouse under moist conditions and submersion was applied to allow all active seeds to be germinated. The experiment continued over an eight-week period in late spring up to early summer. A total of 7090 seedlings emerged, belonged to 20 families, 36 genera and 49 species. In terms of results, an average active soil seed density of 17,328 ± 1675 seeds/m2 was found in 0–15 cm in Poyang Lake, and the greatest average seed density was found at 0–5 cm with 7607 ± 790 seeds/m2, along with 5–10 cm and 10–15 cm with 5419 ± 589 seeds/m2 and 3855 ± 790 seeds/m2, respectively. An obvious difference in composition was found in the species composition of the seed bank at different water levels and burial depths. The highest water level and top layer of soil had the highest diversity index, with a Shannon–Wiener value of 2.011. Seed density, species richness and diversity decreased with the water level gradient zone from low elevation to high elevation and burial depth from surface to deepness. However, there was no interaction between inundation duration and burial depth, indicating that the water level fluctuation and sediment buried had a separate impact on the seed bank composition and diversity index. The present findings can be directly applied to the ecosystem conservation of healthy wetlands, and the ecological restoration of devastated and degraded wetlands in Poyang Lake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]