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Objectives: Forest fires in South Asia lead to widespread haze, where many healthy individuals develop psychosomatic symptoms. We investigated the effects of haze exposure on cerebral hemodynamics and new symptoms. We hypothesised that vasoactive substances present in the haze, would lead to vasodilation of cerebral vasculature, thereby altering cerebral hemodynamics, which in turn may account for new psychosomatic symptoms. Methods: Seventy-four healthy volunteers were recruited, and serial transcranial Doppler (TCD) ultrasonography was performed to record blood flow parameters of bilateral middle cerebral arteries (MCA). The first TCD was performed in an air-conditioned environment. It was repeated outdoors after the participants spent 30-minutes in the haze environment. The prevailing level of pollutant standards index (PSI) was recorded. Appropriate statistical analyses were performed to compare cerebral hemodynamics at baseline and after haze exposure in all participants. Subgroup analyses were then employed to compare the findings between symptomatic and asymptomatic participants. Results: Study participants’ median age was 30 years (IQR 26–34), and new psychosomatic symptoms were reported by 35 (47.3%). There was a modest but significant decrease in pulsatility index (PI) and resistivity index (RI) in the left MCA after haze exposure (PI: p = 0.026; RI: p = 0.021). When compared to baseline parameters, haze exposure resulted in significantly lower mean PI (p = 0.001) and RI (p = 0.001) in symptomatic patients, but this difference was not present in asymptomatic patients (PI: p = 0.919; RI: p = 0.970). Conclusion: Haze causes significant alterations in cerebral hemodynamics in susceptible individuals, probably responsible for various psychosomatic symptoms. The prognostic implications and health effects of haze require evaluation in a larger study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The perivascular niche is critical for intercellular communication between resident cell types in glioblastoma (GBM), and it plays a vital role in maintaining the glioma stem cell (GSC) microenvironment. It is shown in abundant research that different microvascular patterns exist in GBM; and it can be implied that different microvascular patterns are associated with different pathological structures in the perivascular niche. However, the pathological structure of the perivascular niche is still not clear. Here, we investigated the distribution and biological characteristics of different microvascular pattern niches (MVPNs) in GBM by detecting the expression of CD34, CD133, Nestin, α-SMA, GFAP and CD14 in the perivascular niche using multiple -fluorescence. The four basic microvascular patterns are microvascular sprouting (MS), vascular cluster (VC), vascular garland (VG), and glomeruloid vascular proliferation (GVP). By analyzing the proportion of the area of each marker in four types of formations, the results indicated that the expression of CD34, CD133 and Nestin in MS and VC was significantly lower than that in VG and GVP (P<0.05). Furthermore, the results showed that α-SMA expression different in the MS, VC, VG and GVP (P<0.05). However, the expression of GFAP and CD14 in each type of formation exhibited no significant difference (P>0.05). According to the area distributions of different markers, we mapped four precise simulation diagrams to provide an effective foundation for the accurate simulation of glioblastoma in vitro. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand the molecular responses of mature and immature sperm in the catfish Cranoglanis bouderius, we used the iTRAQ proteomics approach to perform proteomic profiling of spermatogenesis in C. bouderius. As a result, 1,941 proteins were identified, including 361 differentially expressed proteins, 157 upregulated proteins and 204 downregulated proteins in mature sperm relative to immature sperm. All of the identified proteins were categorized into seven types of subcellular localizations and three molecular functions and were found to be involved in nine biological processes. All of the differential proteins were involved in 235 different pathways. Moreover, we found that the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) pathway played an important role in the energy metabolism of sperm and that the EABB pathway was involved in the mechanism of spermatogenesis. Our study is the first to use the iTRAQ-based proteomic approach to analyze the catfish sperm proteome, and the results we obtained using this approach are valuable for understanding the molecular mechanisms of fish spermatogenesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]