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Background: Alcoholic liver disease (ALD) is a significant contributor to liver damage. However, the clinical options for the treatment of ALD are limited. Astragaloside IV (AST-IV) is a saponin isolated from Astragalus membranaceus (AM). This study aimed to explore the underlying mechanisms of action of AST-IV in ALD by integrating metabolomics and network pharmacology., Methods: Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were used to establish a rat model of ALD. AST-IV and polyene phosphatidyl choline (PPC; a positive control drug) were administered to rats with ALD for 4 weeks. We measured the body weight, liver index, ALT, AST, TC, TG, inflammatory markers (IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α), and oxidative stress markers (SOD, MDA) and used H&E and ORO staining to evaluate the hepatoprotective effect of both AST-IV and PPC on ALD. Subsequently, we performed untargeted metabolomics to predict the influence of AST-IV on lipid metabolism in rats with ALD. We then used a network pharmacology approach to identify the core targets through which AST-IV corrected lipid metabolism disorders and validated these targets through molecular docking, qRT-PCR and western blot analyses. Finally, we calculated the relationships between ALD-related biochemical markers, differential liver metabolites, and core targets using Spearman's correlation analysis., Results: AST-IV improved pathological damage and reduced lipid accumulation in the hepatocytes of rats with ALD. Furthermore, AST-IV inhibited oxidative stress and inflammatory responses in rats with ALD. The metabolomic results showed that AST-IV corrected hepatic lipid metabolism disorders by targeting linoleic acid, necrosis, sphingolipid, and glycerophospholipid metabolism. The Network pharmacology analysis revealed that the core targets of AST-IV exerting the above effects were p-RIPK3, p-MLKL, CYP1A2, CYP2C19, PPARα, PCSK9. Spearman's correlation analysis showed a strong correlation between ALD-related serum biochemical indices, core targets, and liver differential metabolites., Conclusion: AST-IV corrects the metabolic disorders of linoleic acid, sphingolipid, and glycerophospholipid, and alleviates necrosis in rats with ALD through the core targets p-RIPK3, p-MLKL, CYP1A2, CYP2C19, PPARα, and PCSK9. This study is the first to reveal the mechanism of ALD protection through AST-IV from the perspective of metabolomics and network pharmacology. Therefore, a novel target has been identified to exert protection against ALD. This study provides a reference for ALD treatment., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest All authors declare that this publication has no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier GmbH.)

Granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA) is a necrotizing granulomatous vasculitis classified as an autoimmune small-vessel vasculitis. Clinically, approximately 80% of affected organs in GPA involve the upper/lower respiratory tract and kidneys, with cardiovascular system involvement being rare. Here, we report a case of a 50-year-old female patient who presented with sudden-onset chest pain lasting for 1 hour. The patient had normal body temperature, and markers of infection such as C-reactive protein and erythrocyte sedimentation rate were within normal limits. Electrocardiography revealed ST-segment elevation in inferior, precordial, and posterior leads. Emergency coronary angiography showed no significant obstructive disease, prompting consideration of vasospastic angina given the patient's recurrent chest pain symptoms and findings on laboratory and imaging studies. The patient underwent treatment including coronary vasospasm antagonists and immunomodulation, resulting in clinical improvement and subsequent discharge. During a 7-month follow-up period, the patient did not experience any further adverse cardiovascular events., Competing Interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work., (© 2024 Hou et al.)

Objective: This study aims to investigate their correlation and predictive utility for in-stent restenosis (ISR) in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) following percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI)., Methods: We collected medical records of 668 patients who underwent PCI treatment from January 2022 to December 2022. Based on follow-up results (ISR defined as luminal narrowing ≥ 50% on angiography), all participants were divided into ISR and non-ISR groups. The XGBoost machine learning (ML) model was employed to identify the optimal predictive variables from a set of 31 variables. Discriminatory ability was evaluated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC), while calibration and performance of the prediction models were assessed using the Hosmer-Lemeshow (HL) test and calibration plots. Clinical utility of each model was evaluated using decision curve analysis (DCA)., Results: In the XGBoost importance ranking of predictive factors, LMR and RC ranked first and fourth, respectively. The AUC of the entire XGBoost ML model was 0.8098, whereas the model using traditional stepwise backward regression, comprising five predictive factors, had an AUC of 0.706. The XGBoost model showed superior predictive performance with a higher AUC, indicating better discrimination and predictive accuracy for ISR compared to traditional methods., Conclusion: LMR and RC are identified as cost-effective and reliable biomarkers for predicting ISR risk in ACS patients following drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation. LMR and RC represent cost-effective and reliable biomarkers for predicting ISR risk in ACS patients following drug-eluting stent implantation. Enhances the accuracy and clinical utility of ISR prediction models, offering clinicians a robust tool for risk stratification and personalized patient management., Competing Interests: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare in this work., (© 2024 Hou et al.)

Background: To quantify the changes in dynamic visual acuity (DVA) and explain the hidden reasons after acute exposure to hypobaric hypoxia status., Methods: The study group comprised 18 healthy male and 15 healthy female participants aged 20-24 years old. DVA was measured with the self-developed software of Meidixin (Tianjin) Co., Ltd. Measurements were taken at eight altitudes. Data analysis was performed using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, paired sample T -test, and two-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) for repeated measurements., Results: At constant altitude, DVA showed an overall decreasing trend with increasing angular velocity and a fluctuating decrease at the vast majority of altitudes. At constant angular velocities, DVA gradually increased with altitude, with the most pronounced increase in DVA at altitude 5, and thereafter a gradual decrease in DVA as altitude increased. Finally, as altitude decreased, DVA increased again and reached a higher level at the end of the experiment, which was superior to the DVA in the initial state., Conclusion: Under a hypobaric hypoxic environment at high altitude, DVA was affected by the angular velocity and the degree of hypoxia, manifesting as an increase or decrease in DVA, which affects the pilot's observation of the display and control interfaces during the driving process, acquisition of information, and decision-making ability, which in turn may potentially jeopardize the safety of the flight., 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 Wang, Xie, Yu, Liu, Wang, Guo, Ding, Zhou, Liu, Li, Zhou, Li, Liu, Li and Ding.)

Introduction: Coronary artery disease (CAD) remains a significant global health challenge, with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) being a primary revascularization method. In-stent restenosis (ISR) post-PCI, although reduced, continues to impact patient outcomes. Inflammation and platelet activation play key roles in ISR development, emphasizing the need for accurate risk assessment tools. The systemic inflammation aggregation index (AISI) has shown promise in predicting adverse outcomes in various conditions but has not been studied in relation to ISR., Methods: A retrospective observational study included 1712 patients post-drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation. Data collected encompassed demographics, medical history, medication use, laboratory parameters, and angiographic details. AISI, calculated from specific blood cell counts, was evaluated alongside other variables using machine learning models, including random forest, Xgboost, elastic networks, logistic regression, and multilayer perceptron. The optimal model was selected based on performance metrics and further interpreted using variable importance analysis and the SHAP method., Results: Our study revealed that ISR occurred in 25.8% of patients, with a range of demographic and clinical factors influencing the risk of its development. The random forest model emerged as the most adept in predicting ISR, and AISI featured prominently among the top variables affecting ISR prediction. Notably, higher AISI values were positively correlated with an elevated probability of ISR occurrence. Comparative evaluation and visual analysis of model performance, the random forest model demonstrates high reliability in predicting ISR, with specific metrics including an AUC of 0.9569, accuracy of 0.911, sensitivity of 0.855, PPV of 0.81, and NPV of 0.948., Conclusion: AISI demonstrated itself as a significant independent risk factor for ISR following DES implantation, with an escalation in AISI levels indicating a heightened risk of ISR occurrence., Competing Interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work., (© 2024 Hou et al.)

Hydrogel bioelectronics has been widely used in wearable sensors, electronic skin, human-machine interfaces, and implantable tissue-electrode interfaces, providing great convenience for human health, safety, and education. The generation of electronic waste from bioelectronic devices jeopardizes human health and the natural environment. The development of degradable and recyclable hydrogels is recognized as a paradigm for realizing the next generation of environmentally friendly and sustainable bioelectronics. This review first summarizes the wide range of applications for bioelectronics, including wearable and implantable devices. Then, the employment of natural and synthetic polymers in hydrogel bioelectronics is discussed in terms of degradability and recyclability. Finally, this work provides constructive thoughts and perspectives on the current challenges toward hydrogel bioelectronics, providing valuable insights and guidance for the future evolution of sustainable hydrogel bioelectronics.

This study aims to analyze the correlation between Systemic Inflammatory Response Index (SIRI) and the severity of coronary artery stenosis in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD). It also aims to assess the predictive value of SIRI for the severity of coronary artery stenosis. A total of 2990 patients who underwent coronary angiography were included in this study. The Gensini score was used to estimate the severity of coronary vascular lesions. The predictive ability of SIRI for CHD was evaluated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Binary multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to predict the likelihood of CHD based on the SIRI index. The results showed that people with higher SIRI index were more likely to have CHD (P < 0.001). After controlling for other risk factors, the highest quartile had a significantly higher incidence of coronary artery disease compared to the lowest quartile (odds ratio [OR] 2.25, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.73-3.92, P < 0.001). Furthermore, the Gensini score was significantly higher in the fourth quartile group (T4) compared to the first (T1) and second (T2) quartile groups (P < 0.001). Additionally, the SIRI index was significantly higher in the group with severe coronary artery lesions compared to the mild and moderate groups (P < 0.001). The SIRI index also showed a higher predictive ability for the extent of coronary lesions under the ROC curve compared to other commonly used markers, including platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR), and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) (P < 0.001). Therefore, SIRI index positively correlates with coronary artery stenosis in CHD patients, serving as an effective early screening marker for assessing stenosis severity.

Objective: To investigate whether the surgical process information sharing system could alleviate the parental anxiety during a pediatric selective operation., Design: Randomized controlled trial., Methods: A questionnaire survey was conducted one day before surgery for the enrolled participants. Family members assigned to the intervention group received real-time process information sharing through service reminders during the surgical period, while the control group received standard perioperative education. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was used to evaluate sleep quality during the perioperative period, and the State of Cohesion-13 Scale (SOC-13) and Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) were used to assess anxiety levels. Satisfaction levels during the perioperative period were assessed through a follow-up survey conducted one day after surgery., Results: The intervention group showed better scores in terms of PSQI, SOC-13, SAS, and postoperative satisfaction levels at various time points compared to the control group, with statistically significant differences observed (P < 0.05)., Conclusion: Real-time process information sharing is effective in reducing perioperative sleep disorders and anxiety among family members of pediatric patients, as well as improving satisfaction levels. This approach not only establishes a process and mechanism for effective doctor-patient communication but also helps implement continuous perioperative care, thereby optimizing internet healthcare services., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Purpose: To explore the influence of corneal higher-order aberrations (HOAs) on dynamic visual acuity (DVA) post cataract surgery., Methods: A total of 27 patients with 45 eyes following cataract surgery were included in this study. The postoperative monocular object-moving DVA at the velocity of 20, 40, and 80 degrees per second (dps) were examined at 1 month. The total corneal HOAs were measured with Scheimpflug-based corneal topography. The correlation between postoperative DVA and HOAs was analyzed., Results: Significant difference was shown among DVA at different velocities ( P < 0.001). The 20 dps DVA was significantly better than 40 ( P < 0.001) and 80 ( P < 0.001) dps DVA. No significant difference was observed between 40 and 80 dps DVA ( P = 0.420). The vertical coma and the root mean square (RMS) of coma (RMS coma ) were statistically correlated with 80 dps DVA ( P < 0.05). The vertical trefoil, RMS trefoil and total RMS HOA were statistically correlated with 40 and 80 dps DVA ( P < 0.05). The spherical aberration was not significantly associated with postoperative DVA ( P > 0.05 for all velocites). The multivariate linear regression model revealed that age was a significant influential factor for 20 dps DVA ( P = 0.002), and RMS trefoil (4 mm) and age were significantly associated with 40 and 80 dps DVA ( P ≤ 0.01)., Conclusion: The research demonstrated that larger corneal HOAs, especially coma and trefoil aberrations were significantly associated with worse high-speed DVA, but not spherical aberration post cataract surgery., 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 Wu, Wang, Li, Li, Jiang and Li.)

Objectives: The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the prevalence of somatic pain in orthodontic patients and determine whether somatic pain contributes to worsening oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) through the mediating effect of psychological discomfort., Materials and Methods: Scale measurements and analyses were conducted on a cohort of 769 orthodontic outpatients, encompassing Patient Health Questionnaire-15-pain (PHQ-15-P), Hua-Xi Emotional-Distress Index (HEI), Psychosocial Impact of Dental Aesthetics Questionnaire (PIDAQ), and Oral Health Impact Profile-14 (OHIP-14)., Results: Among the respondents, 56.3% (N = 433) reported somatic pain and 20.0% (N = 154) had mental discomfort based on PHQ-15-P and HEI scores. Patients with somatic pain symptoms had significantly higher scores of HEI and OHIP-14 (P < 0.001), and higher PHQ-15-P and HEI scores emerged as statistically significant predictors of lower OHIP-14 scores (P < 0.001). HEI scores which assessed anxiety and depression partially mediated the correlation between PHQ-15-P and OHIP-14 scores, of which anxiety accounted for 52.9% of the overall mediation effect, dominating the indirect effect., Conclusion: Orthodontic patients reporting somatic pains were at a significantly higher risk of worsening OHRQoL during treatment, and this adverse effect is partially mediated by anxiety and depression., Clinical Relevance: Our findings highlight the necessity for the assessment of general health and mental well-being during orthodontic interventions. To prevent delays in treating general disorders and the potential failure of orthodontic treatments, we encourage increased attentiveness towards patients with somatic symptoms and consideration of the adverse effects of comorbid mental distress., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Repeated microbial infection, excess reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation, cell dysfunction, and impaired angiogenesis under hyperglycemia severely inhibit diabetic wound healing. Therefore, developing multifunctional wound dressings accommodating the complex microenvironment of diabetic wounds is of great significance. Here, a multifunctional hydrogel (Regesi-CS) is prepared by loading regeneration silicon (Regesi) in the non-crosslinked chitosan (CS) solution, followed by freeze-drying and hydration. As expected, the blank non-crosslinked CS hydrogel (1%) shows great antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), improves fibroblast migration, and scavenges intracellular ROS. Interestingly, after loading 1% Regesi, the Regesi-CS (1%-1%) hydrogel shows greater antibacterial activity, significantly promotes fibroblasts proliferation and migration, scavenges much more ROS, and substantially protects fibroblasts under oxidative stress, yet Regesi alone has no or even negative effects. In the MRSA-infected diabetic wound model, Regesi-CS (1%-1%) hydrogel effectively promotes wound healing by eliminating bacterial infection, enhancing granulation tissue formation, promoting collagen deposition, and improving angiogenesis. In conclusion, Regesi-CS hydrogel may be a potential wound dressing for the effective treatment and management of chronic diabetic wounds., (© 2023 Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

Drug resistance substantially compromises antibiotic therapy and poses a serious threat to public health. Fusidic acid (FA) is commonly used to treat staphylococcal infections, such as pneumonia, osteomyelitis and skin infections. However, Gram-negative bacteria have natural resistance to FA, which is almost restrained in cell membranes due to the strong interactions between FA and phospholipids. Herein, we aim to utilize the strong FA-phospholipid interaction to pre-form a complex of FA with the exogenous phospholipid. The FA, in the form of an FA-phospholipid complex (FA-PC), no longer interacts with the endogenous membrane phospholipids and thus can be delivered into bacteria cells successfully. We found that the water solubility of FA (5 µg/mL) was improved to 133 µg/mL by forming the FA-PC (molar ratio 1:1). Furthermore, upon incubation for 6 h, the FA-PC (20 µg/mL) caused a 99.9% viability loss of E. coli and 99.1% loss of P. aeruginosa , while free FA did not work. The morphology of the elongated bacteria cells after treatment with the FA-PC was demonstrated by SEM. The successful intracellular delivery was shown by confocal laser scanning microscopy in the form of coumarin 6-PC (C6-PC), where C6 served as a fluorescent probe. Interestingly, the antibacterial effect of the FA-PC was significantly compromised by adding extra phospholipid in the medium, indicating that there may be a phospholipid-based transmembrane transport mechanism underlying the intracellular delivery of the FA-PC. This is the first report regarding FA-PC formation and its successful reversing of Gram-negative bacteria resistance to FA, and it provides a platform to reverse transmembrane delivery-related drug resistance. The ready availability of phospholipid and the simple preparation allow it to have great potential for clinical use.

Skin wounds are susceptible to microbial infections which commonly lead to the delayed wound healing. Rapid clearance of pathogens from the wound is of great significance and importance for efficient healing of the infected wounds. Herein, we report a multifunctional hybrid dressing, which simply combines sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO 3 ) and hyaluronic acid (HA) for the synergistic wound healing. Addition of NaHCO 3 allows the hybrid dressing to have the great antibacterial and antioxidant activity, while maintaining the intrinsic skin repair function of HA. As a result, NaHCO 3 /HA hybrid dressing showed the great antibacterial activity against both Gram-positive (S. aureus) and Gram-negative (E. coli) pathogens, the ability to improve the fibroblasts proliferation and migration, the cell-protection capacity under H 2 O 2 -induced oxidative stress, and most importantly, the great healing efficacy for the mice wound infected by S. aureus. We further found that the epidermal regeneration, the collagen deposition and the angiogenesis were enhanced by NaHCO 3 /HA hybrid dressing. All these effects were NaHCO 3 concentration-dependent. Since the NaHCO 3 /HA hybrid dressing is drug-free, easily fabricated, biocompatible, and efficient for wound healing, it may have great potentials for clinical management of infected wounds., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Recent studies have shown that a higher intake of ascorbic acid was associated with a lower prevalence of depression. Nevertheless, the recall bias was common in dietary surveys in these studies, and it was ignored that there were differences in the absorption and utilization of ascorbic acid in the body. Hence, we aim to investigate the association between serum ascorbic acid levels and the prevalence of depression in US adults., Methods: A total of 3,404 participants from the 2017-2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) that underwent measurement of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) scores and serum levels of ascorbic acid. Propensity Score Matching (PSM) successfully established a case-control study, comprising 299 participants diagnosed with depression and 1,107 as controls. We used binary logistic regression to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to explore associated risk factors for depression. Restricted cubic splines (RCS) were used to show the nonlinear relationship between serum ascorbic acid levels and the prevalence of depression., Results: The prevalence of depression was approximately 8.8%, with a median serum ascorbic acid level of 49.9 (36.0, 67.0) μmol/L. Results revealed that the serum ascorbic acid levels of depressed patients were significantly lower than those of non-depressed individuals (42.97 VS 52.97 μmol/L). The baseline data indicated that as serum ascorbic acid levels increased from Quartile 1 (Q 1 ) to Quartile 4 (Q 4 ), the depression prevalence decreased from 12.0 to 5.4% ( p  < 0.05). The results of the chi-square test after PSM showed that serum ascorbic acid was still statistically significant ( p  < 0.001) with the prevalence of depression. Forest plot showed that compared with the Q 1 of serum ascorbic acid level, the OR and 95%CI of depression prevalence in Q 4 was 0.42 (0.30 ~ 0.61), and the adjusted OR and 95%CI of depressive prevalence was 0.49 (0.33 ~ 0.73). RCS models showed an L-shaped nonlinear relationship (P for nonlinearity <0.05) between serum ascorbic acid and depression., Conclusion: Our results suggested that higher serum ascorbic acid levels are associated with a reduced prevalence of depression., 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 Chen, Luo, Han, Li, Zhou and Ren.)

The utilization of 3-dimensional point cloud technology for non-invasive measurement of plant phenotypic parameters can furnish important data for plant breeding, agricultural production, and diverse research applications. Nevertheless, the utilization of depth sensors and other tools for capturing plant point clouds often results in missing and incomplete data due to the limitations of 2.5D imaging features and leaf occlusion. This drawback obstructed the accurate extraction of phenotypic parameters. Hence, this study presented a solution for incomplete flowering Chinese Cabbage point clouds using Point Fractal Network-based techniques. The study performed experiments on flowering Chinese Cabbage by constructing a point cloud dataset of their leaves and training the network. The findings demonstrated that our network is stable and robust, as it can effectively complete diverse leaf point cloud morphologies, missing ratios, and multi-missing scenarios. A novel framework is presented for 3D plant reconstruction using a single-view RGB-D (Red, Green, Blue and Depth) image. This method leveraged deep learning to complete localized incomplete leaf point clouds acquired by RGB-D cameras under occlusion conditions. Additionally, the extracted leaf area parameters, based on triangular mesh, were compared with the measured values. The outcomes revealed that prior to the point cloud completion, the R 2 value of the flowering Chinese Cabbage's estimated leaf area (in comparison to the standard reference value) was 0.9162. The root mean square error (RMSE) was 15.88 cm 2 , and the average relative error was 22.11%. However, post-completion, the estimated value of leaf area witnessed a significant improvement, with an R 2 of 0.9637, an RMSE of 6.79 cm 2 , and average relative error of 8.82%. The accuracy of estimating the phenotypic parameters has been enhanced significantly, enabling efficient retrieval of such parameters. This development offers a fresh perspective for non-destructive identification of plant phenotypes., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests., (Copyright © 2023 Haibo Chen et al.)

Purpose: To evaluate the three symptom indicators of scalp seborrheic dermatitis (SSD), namely scalp flaking, maximum erythema area, and pruritus, to develop a "16-point scale," to explore its relationship with the severity of SSD, and verify the reliability of the 16-point scale., Method: A dermatologist evaluated patients with SSD using a 16-point scale, and statistically analyzed the collected data with the help of SPSS 26.0 software. The measurement data are expressed as (mean ± SD), and the intergroup comparison was done using a non-parametric test. We performed the correlation analysis using the bivariate correlation analysis method, and the relationship among non-normal distribution data variables were analyzed using Spearman's correlation coefficient. p < 0.05 indicated that the difference was statistically significant., Results: The total score of the "16-point scale" strongly correlated with the severity of disease, where scalp flaking had the strongest correlation. As compared with a single score, the correlation of the total score with the severity of disease was higher. The scoring range for mild patients was (0, 5], that for moderate patients was (5, 9], and that for severe patients was (9, 16]., Conclusion: A "16-point scale", consisting of items for adherent scalp flaking (0-10), maximum erythema area (0-3), and pruritus (0-3), was used to score the patients with SSD, and the total score was strongly correlated with and differentiated the severity of SSD. Recommended evaluation criteria: a total score of 0-5 points indicates mild SSD, 6-9 points indicates moderate SSD, 10-16 points indicates severe SSD. These criteria can help to standardize disease diagnosis and treatment, and efficacy assessment., (© 2023 The Authors. Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

MicroRNAs (MiRNAs) play pivotal roles in regulating gene expression, and serve as crucial biomarkers for diagnosis of a variety of disease. However, label-free and sensitive miRNA detection remains a huge challenge due to the low abundance. Herein, we developed an approach through integrating primer exchange reaction (PER) with DNA-templated silver nanoclusters (AgNCs) for label-free and sensitive miRNA detection. In this method, PER was used to amplify miRNA signals and produce single-strand DNA (ssDNA) sequences. The produced ssDNA sequences mediated DNA-templated AgNCs based signal generation by unfolding the designed hairpin probe (HP). The generated AgNCs signal was correlated with the dosage of target miRNA. Eventually, the established approach exhibited a low detection of limit of 47 fM with a great dynamic range of more than five orders of magnitude. In addition, the method was also utilized to detect the miRNA-31 expression in collected clinical samples from pancreatitis patients and demonstrated that miRNA-31 was upregulated in patients, showing a great promising of the method in clinical application., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

This study aimed to investigate the physiological and biochemical responses of filamentous microalga Tribonema minus to different Na 2 SeO 3 concentrations and its selenium absorption and metabolism to evaluate the potential in treating selenium-containing wastewater. The results showed that low Na 2 SeO 3 concentrations promoted growth by increasing chlorophyll content and antioxidant capacity, whereas high concentrations caused oxidative damage. Although Na 2 SeO 3 exposure reduced lipid accumulation compared with the control, it significantly increased carbohydrate, soluble sugar, and protein contents, with the highest carbohydrate productivity of 117.97 mg/L/d at 0.5 mg/L Na 2 SeO 3 . Furthermore, this alga effectively absorbed Na 2 SeO 3 in the growth medium and converted most of it into volatile selenium and a small part into organic selenium (predominantly as selenocysteine), showing strong selenite removal efficacy. This is the first report on the potential of T. minus to produce valuable biomass while removing selenite, providing new insights into the economic feasibility of bioremediation of selenium-containing wastewater., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Objective: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a prevalent chronic respiratory disease that poses a significant health risk to individuals. Patients with COPD are predisposed to a higher incidence of coronary artery disease (CAD) than the general population. This study aims to investigate the correlation between COPD and the incidence of in-stent restenosis (ISR) after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI)., Methods: This study retrospectively analyzed the clinical data and laboratory test results of patients who underwent PCI at our hospital between January 2018 and December 2021 to investigate the relationship between COPD and drug-Eluting Stents (DES) postoperative ISR. We employed the best subset method to select the most suitable combination of predictive factors, utilizing the data, and verified the precision of the model by means of internal validation. We ultimately assessed the performance of the prediction model using an ROC curve., Results: The research indicates that COPD is an independent risk factor for ISR after PCI (OR=2.437, 95% CI [1.336, 4.495], P=0.004). The analysis revealed an area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of 0.783 for the training group and 0.705 for the testing group, indicating a model fitting for both groups (both > 0.5)., Conclusion: COPD history is a dependable predictor of stent restenosis post percutaneous coronary intervention., Competing Interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work., (© 2023 Hou et al.)

Rapeseed is a globally important economic crop that can be severely impacted by aphids. However, our understanding of rapeseed resistance to aphid stress is very limited. In this study, we analyzed the resistance characteristics of the low aphid-susceptible variety APL01 and the highly aphid-susceptible variety Holly in response to aphid stress. APL01 had a more significant inhibitory effect on aphid proliferation compared with Holly during the early stage of inoculation, whereas Holly showed stronger tolerance to aphid stress compared with APL01 during the later stage of inoculation. Through transcriptome, physiological, and gene expression analyses, it was revealed that chitinase activity, catalase activity, calcium signal transduction, and activation of systemic acquired resistance might be involved in aphid resistance in B. napus . The degree of inhibition of photosynthesis in plants under aphid stress directly determines the tolerance of B. napus to aphid stress. Furthermore, four promising candidate genes were screened from eight genes related to rapeseed response to biotic stress through RT-qPCR analysis of gene expression levels. These research findings represent an important step forward in understanding the resistance of rapeseed to aphid stress and provide a solid foundation for the cloning of genes responsible for this resistance.

Secondary thrombocythemia (ST), also called reactive thrombocytosis, is caused by a disorder that triggers increased production by normal platelet-forming cells and is characterized by the abnormally increased number of platelet and megakaryocytes in the bone marrow. Previous reports have found complications from malignant tumors, chronic inflammation, acute inflammation, acute hemorrhage, splenectomy, etc. to be the common causes of ST. However, reports of secondary thrombocytosis caused by antibiotics are limited and there are no reports of secondary thrombocytosis with acute myocardial infarction as the first presentation. If the patient is at high risk of thrombosis, intensive antithrombotic therapy is required. To raise clinicians' awareness of drug-induced secondary thrombocytosis and to enhance antithrombotic therapy for high-risk patients, this article presented a case of drug-induced secondary thrombocytosis with acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction as the primary manifestation., Case Presentation: An 80-year-old woman was admitted with cardiogenic shock due to post-activity chest pain. She was started on aspirin and clopidogrel antiplatelet therapy, then replaced aspirin with indolibuprofen, which has relatively few side effects. There was no significant decrease in platelet counts during treatment., Clinical Discussion: Secondary thrombocythemia, characterized by nonspecific symptoms, is difficult to diagnose. Secondary thrombocytosis with acute myocardial infarction as the first symptom is uncommon, but is very urgent and associated with a poor prognosis. What's more, cause-specific treatment counts for secondary thrombocythemia. Therefore it is important to search for the causal factor of secondary thrombocytosis. Secondary thrombocytosis caused by cephalosporins is rare. There is a need to arouse the attention of clinicians to the ST caused by cephalosporins and to provide a guide of treatment to these patients., Conclusion: After a thorough analysis of the pertinent literature, we discovered that several retrospective studies demonstrated the effectiveness of cytoreductive therapy in significantly reducing platelet counts. Based on this finding, we prescribed hydroxyurea to our patient, which led to a gradual decrease in platelet count and ultimately resulted in a return to normal levels., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)

Objective: The purpose of the study was to identify the latent body mass index (BMI) z-score trajectories of children from birth to 5 years of age and evaluate their sex-specific association with prepregnant BMI and gestational weight gain (GWG)., Methods: This was a retrospective longitudinal cohort study performed in China. In total, three distinct BMI-z trajectories from birth to 5 years of age were determined for both genders using the latent class growth modeling. The logistic regression model was used to assess the associations of maternal prepregnant BMI and GWG with childhood BMI-z growth trajectories., Results: Excessive GWG increased the risks of children falling into high-BMI-z trajectory relative to adequate GWG (OR = 2.04, 95% CI: 1.29, 3.20) in boys; girls born to mothers with prepregnancy underweight had a higher risk of low-BMI-z trajectory than girls born to mothers with prepregnancy adequate weight (OR = 1.85, 95% CI: 1.22, 2.79)., Conclusion: BMI-z growth trajectories of children from 0 to 5 years of age have population heterogeneity. Prepregnant BMI and GWG are associated with child BMI-z trajectories. It is necessary to monitor weight status before and during pregnancy to promote maternal and child health., 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 Xie, Han, Peng, Zhang, Gong, Du, Ren, Zhou, Li, Zeng and Shao.)

Objective: The CHA2DS2-VASc score, a system which has been initially recommended for the assessment of thromboembolic risk in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF), arouses attention in the field of adverse coronary events. The purpose of this study was to explore the predictive value of preprocedural CHA2DS2-VASc score on ISR in patients after drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation., Methods: To further investigate the relationship between CHA2DS2-VASc scores and ISR after DES, a retrospective study of DES was carried on. Additionally, the preoperative variables for the ISR and control groups were contrasted. Predictive factors were chosen using the optimal subset regression. We validate the model using internal validation. The prediction model was evaluated using the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analysis., Results: We used a 3:7 ratio to create an experimental group and a validation group, and then ran a stepwise regression with the data from each of the two groups. The results showed that CHA2DS2-VASc score was an independent risk factor for ISR in both the experimental (p = 0.0139) and validation groups (p = 0.0014), and both had significant predictive value for ISR. The area of the ROC curve was greater than 0.5 in both groups (AUC = 0.78, 0.719, respectively) indicating that the model fit was good in both groups., Conclusion: The CHA2DS2-VASc score is a reliable predictor of in-stent restenosis (ISR) after DES implantation., Competing Interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work., (© 2023 Zhao et al.)

Background: Ischemic cardiomyopathy (ICM) with high morbidity and mortality is closely associated with an abnormal equilibrium of circulation selenium levels. The oxidative stress theory is the most accepted theory of selenium causing ischemic cardiomyopathy. However, the role of inflammatory responses in ICM has received limited attention., Methods: This study included 119 subjects, 43 of whom were patients with ICM, and 76 were healthy controls. Blood specimens were collected from subjects and serum levels of inflammatory and oxidative stress indicators and plasma levels of selenium were measured., Results: When plasma selenium and indicators of inflammation and oxidative stress were compared between groups, plasma selenium levels were significantly lower in the ICM group than in the control group (68.83874 vs 104.39775, p =0.02032), while indicators of inflammation such as tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) (79.09773 vs 46.15634, p <0.001), interleukin-6 (IL-6) (49.41484 vs 38.46923, p <0.01) and neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (3.696574 vs 2.383658, p <0.001) were significantly higher in the ICM group than in the control group (all of these results were statistically different). Additionally, malondialdehyde (MDA), a marker of oxidative stress, was considerably higher in the ICM group than in the control group (61.63078 vs 39.0609, p <0.01). In contrast, there were no significant differences in superoxide dismutase (SOD) levels between groups ( p >0.05). The Poisson regression analysis revealed a significant association between selenium and high levels of MDA, IL-6 and TNF-α ( p <0.05). Additionally, selenium was negatively connected with SOD levels and the neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio, but this relationship was not statistically significant ( p =0.96, 0.15, respectively)., Conclusion: Selenium deficiency is strongly associated with the development of ICM, and with levels of inflammation and oxidative stress in patients with ICM. Selenium can prevent the development and delay the progression of ICM by alleviating inflammatory responses., Competing Interests: Yinhua Luo and Xiaohong He are co-first authors for this study. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (© 2022 Luo et al.)

Background: Acute appendicitis represents one of the main causes of surgical emergencies. It can be approached as an open appendectomy or a laparoscopic appendectomy (LA). However, LA generally requires the cooperation of a surgeon and an assistant. This study aims to compare the safety and efficacy of the novel brace-assisted single-person laparoscopic appendectomy (BASPLA) with conventional laparoscopic appendectomy (CLA) in the treatment of patients diagnosed with acute appendicitis by neural network algorithm analysis., Methods: Between January 2020 and December 2021,a total of 120 adult patients with acute appendicitis were randomized to the BASPLA group (62 cases) and the CLA group (58 cases).The clinical data were compared between the two groups, including demographics, clinical characteristics, and outcomes., Results: There was no significant difference in patients' pain scores before operation ( p  = 0.68) and after operation ( p  = 0.81) and patient-reported cosmetic scores ( p  = 0.43) between the two groups. Operation time in the BASPLA group was longer than that in the CLA group ( p <0.001). There were no significant differences in the conversion rate ( p  = 0.94), analgesics required before ( p  = 0.91) and after the operation ( p  = 0.78), intraoperative bleeding ( p  = 0.53), recovery of bowel movement time ( p  = 0.26), hospital stay ( p  = 0.06), and complication rate ( p  = 0.84) between the two groups., Conclusions: BASPLA for adult acute appendicitis can be a substitute for CLA, BASPLA is comparable to CLA in postoperative pain and quality of life. Compared to surgical assistants, it not only provides a stable, clear image for the surgeon but also frees up personnel. Especially in emergency surgery, it can achieve satisfactory clinical efficacy without requiring an assistant., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Nengyun Zhang et al.)

The fast and precise detection of dense litchi fruits and the determination of their maturity is of great practical significance for yield estimation in litchi orchards and robot harvesting. Factors such as complex growth environment, dense distribution, and random occlusion by leaves, branches, and other litchi fruits easily cause the predicted output based on computer vision deviate from the actual value. This study proposed a fast and precise litchi fruit detection method and application software based on an improved You Only Look Once version 5 (YOLOv5) model, which can be used for the detection and yield estimation of litchi in orchards. First, a dataset of litchi with different maturity levels was established. Second, the YOLOv5s model was chosen as a base version of the improved model. ShuffleNet v2 was used as the improved backbone network, and then the backbone network was fine-tuned to simplify the model structure. In the feature fusion stage, the CBAM module was introduced to further refine litchi's effective feature information. Considering the characteristics of the small size of dense litchi fruits, the 1,280 × 1,280 was used as the improved model input size while we optimized the network structure. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, we performed ablation experiments and compared it with other models on the test set. The results showed that the improved model's mean average precision (mAP) presented a 3.5% improvement and 62.77% compression in model size compared with the original model. The improved model size is 5.1 MB, and the frame per second (FPS) is 78.13 frames/s at a confidence of 0.5. The model performs well in precision and robustness in different scenarios. In addition, we developed an Android application for litchi counting and yield estimation based on the improved model. It is known from the experiment that the correlation coefficient R 2 between the application test and the actual results was 0.9879. In summary, our improved method achieves high precision, lightweight, and fast detection performance at large scales. The method can provide technical means for portable yield estimation and visual recognition of litchi harvesting robots., 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, Zhao, Xiong, Wang, Li and Lan.)

Background: Breast cancer (BC) is one of the most common malignant tumors in women and poses a serious threat to their health. Compound Kushen injection (CKI) has shown therapeutic effects on a variety of cancers, including BC, and it can significantly improve the lives of patients. However, the underlying mechanism remains unclear and needs to be fully elucidated., Methods: The active constituents of CKI were identified through a literature review, and the anti-BC targets of CKI were determined using multiple databases and a ChIP data analysis. Subsequently, the target was analyzed on the DAVID database through GO and KEGG to identify the key pathway that CKI affects to exhibit anti-BC activity. In addition, MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells were treated with CKI for 24 and 48 hours at five concentrations, and the effects of CKI on cell proliferation and apoptosis were measured using MTT and annexin V/propidium iodide staining assays, respectively. The genes and protein identified to be involved in this pathway were verified using real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) and western blot(WB) in BC cells., Results: Twelve CKI anti-BC targets were obtained by a comprehensive analysis of the targets collected in the databases and results from the ChIP analysis. Bioinformatics analysis was performed for 12 targets. KEGG analysis showed that the 12 targets were mainly related to the VEGF, ErbB, and TNF signaling pathways. We focused our study on the VEGF signaling pathway as the p -value for the VEGF signaling pathway was the lowest among the three pathways. In vitro experiments showed that CKI significantly inhibited the proliferation of BC cells and induced apoptosis. Furthermore, qPCR and WB experiments showed that the expression of VEGF signaling pathway genes PIK3CA and NOS3 were significantly increased meanwhile SRC was significantly decreased after CKI intervention., Conclusion: CKI significantly inhibited the proliferation of BC cells and induced apoptosis. The main mechanism for the anti-BC effect of CKI may be that it regulates the VEGF signaling pathway by increasing the expression of PIK3CA, SRC, and NOS3. Macrozamin and lamprolobine may be the main active components of CKI against BC., 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 Ye, Zhang, Liang, Wang, Bai, Li, Wei, Li, Huang and Tang.)

Objective: To investigate body fluid status in diabetic macular edema (DME) patients and the extent to which it is affected by renal function., Methods: One hundred and thirty-two eyes from 132 patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) were prospectively collected in this cross-sectional, observational study. Thirty-five were DM patients without diabetic retinopathy (DR), 31 were DR patients without DME, and 66 were DME patients. The fluid status of each participant was quantified with extracellular water-to-total body water ratio (ECW/TBW) using a body composition monitor. Central subfield thickness (CST) and macular volume (MV) were obtained using optical coherence tomography (OCT). Urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UACR), estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), and albumin was obtained using serum and urine laboratory data., Results: ECW/TBW was significantly increased in DME patients (39.2 ± 0.9, %) compared to DM (38.1 ± 0.7, %, P = 0.003) and DR patients without DME (38.7 ± 0.9, %, P < 0.001). In multilinear regression, fluid overload was positively related to DME and UACR (DME vs. DM: β = 2.418, P < 0.001; DME vs. DR: β = 1.641, P = 0.001; UACR, per 10 2 , β = 1.017, P = 0.01). In the binary logistic regression for DME risk, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) increased significantly by adding ECW/TBW along with UACR and age (AUC: 0.826 vs. 0.768)., Conclusion: DME patients had elevated body fluid volume independent of kidney functions. The assessment of extracellular fluid status may help in the management of DME., 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 Yao, Peng, Li, Liang, Xie, Zhuang, Chen, Chen, Wang, Zhang and Cao.)

The precision detection of dense small targets in orchards is critical for the visual perception of agricultural picking robots. At present, the visual detection algorithms for plums still have a poor recognition effect due to the characteristics of small plum shapes and dense growth. Thus, this paper proposed a lightweight model based on the improved You Only Look Once version 4 (YOLOv4) to detect dense plums in orchards. First, we employed a data augmentation method based on category balance to alleviate the imbalance in the number of plums of different maturity levels and insufficient data quantity. Second, we abandoned Center and Scale Prediction Darknet53 (CSPDarknet53) and chose a lighter MobilenetV3 on selecting backbone feature extraction networks. In the feature fusion stage, we used depthwise separable convolution (DSC) instead of standard convolution to achieve the purpose of reducing model parameters. To solve the insufficient feature extraction problem of dense targets, this model achieved fine-grained detection by introducing a 152 × 152 feature layer. The Focal loss and complete intersection over union (CIOU) loss were joined to balance the contribution of hard-to-classify and easy-to-classify samples to the total loss. Then, the improved model was trained through transfer learning at different stages. Finally, several groups of detection experiments were designed to evaluate the performance of the improved model. The results showed that the improved YOLOv4 model had the best mean average precision (mAP) performance than YOLOv4, YOLOv4-tiny, and MobileNet-Single Shot Multibox Detector (MobileNet-SSD). Compared with some results from the YOLOv4 model, the model size of the improved model is compressed by 77.85%, the parameters are only 17.92% of the original model parameters, and the detection speed is accelerated by 112%. In addition, the influence of the automatic data balance algorithm on the accuracy of the model and the detection effect of the improved model under different illumination angles, different intensity levels, and different types of occlusions were discussed in this paper. It is indicated that the improved detection model has strong robustness and high accuracy under the real natural environment, which can provide data reference for the subsequent orchard yield estimation and engineering applications of robot picking work., 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, Zhao, Liu, Li, Chen and Lan.)

Objective: In-stent restenosis (ISR) is a fatal complication of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). An early predictive model with the medical history of patients, angiographic characteristics, inflammatory indicators and blood biochemical index is urgently needed to predict ISR events. We aim to establish a risk prediction model for ISR in CAD patients undergoing PCI., Methods: A total of 477 CAD patients who underwent PCI with DES (drug-eluting stents) between January 2017 and December 2020 were retrospectively enrolled. And the preoperative factors were compared between the non-ISR and ISR groups. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and multi-factor logistic regression were used for statistical analysis. The prediction model was evaluated using receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analysis, the Hosmer-Lemeshow 2 statistic, and the calibration curve., Results: In this study, 94 patients developed ISR after PCI. Univariate analysis showed that post-PCI ISR was associated with the underlying disease (COPD), higher Gensini score (GS score), higher LDL-C, higher neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio, and higher remnant cholesterol (RC). The multi-factor logistic regression analysis suggested that remnant cholesterol (odds ratio [OR] = 2.09, 95% confidence interval [CI] [1.40-3.11], P < 0.001), GS score (OR = 1.01, 95% CI [1.00, 1.02], P = 0.002), medical history of COPD (OR = 4.56, 95% CI [1.98, 10.40], P < 0.001), and monocyte (OR = 1.30, 95% CI [1.04, 1.70], P < 0.001) were independent risk factors for ISR. A nomogram was generated and displayed favorable fitting (Hosmer-Lemeshow test P = 0.609), discrimination (area under ROC curve was 0.847), and clinical usefulness by decision curve analysis., Conclusion: Patients with certain preoperative characteristics, such as a history of COPD, higher GS scores, higher levels of RC, and monocytes, who undergo PCI may have a higher risk of developing ISR. The predictive nomogram, based on the above predictors, can be used to help identify patients who are at a higher risk of ISR early on, with a view to provide post-PCI health management for patients., Competing Interests: Yinhua Luo and Ni Tan are co-first authors for this study. The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work., (© 2022 Luo et al.)

Objective: In-stent restenosis (ISR) is regarded as a critical limiting factor in stenting for coronary heart disease (CHD). Recent research has shown that fasting residual cholesterol (RC) has been shown to have a substantial impact on coronary heart disease. Unfortunately, there have not been much data to bear out the relationship between RC and ISR. Then, the predictive value of RC for in-stent restenosis in patients with coronary heart disease was analyzed., Patients and Methods: Aiming to explore the relationship between RC and ISR, we designed a retrospective study of patients with CHD after drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation, combining the data from a public database and selecting the best-fitting model by comparing the optical subset with least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression., Results: Analysis of the abovementioned two models showed that the optical subset optimal subset model, which was based on RC, creatine, history of diabetes, smoking, multi-vessel lesions (2 vessels or more lesions), peripheral vascular lesions (PAD), and blood uric acid, had a better fit (AUC = 0.68), and that RC was an independent risk factor for ISR in the abovementioned two models. Notwithstanding its limitation, this study does suggest that RC has good predictive value for ISR., Conclusion: Remnant cholesterol is an independent risk factor for in-stent restenosis after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and is a reliable predictor of ISR., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest in this work., (© 2022 Luo et al.)

Background and Objectives: Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the common congenital malformations in children and cause malnutrition. We determine the association between dietary nutrient intake and nutritional status of children with CHD., Methods and Study Design: 428 children of age 1-10 years with CHD admitted. The dietary nutrient intake was recorded after 3 days of 24-h recall. The growth and nutritional status of children were evaluated using anthropometric measurements and z-scores., Results: The prevalence of malnutrition was 37.6% in CHD. 57.8%, 12.6%, 43.8%, and 40.6% of children did not meet their requirements for energy, protein, fat, and carbohydrate, respectively. The prevalence of insufficient intake was 88.3% for calcium, 35.9% for magnesium, 21.9% for iron, and 12.5% for zinc. 15%-86% of children did not meet vitamin requirements. 85.2% and 53.9% of children did not meet their requirements for vitamin A and vitamin C. The prevalence of insufficient intake was 39.1% for thiamin, 24.2% for riboflavin, 15.6% for niacin and 28.1% for vitamin E. Compared with the normal nutrition group, malnutrition group had a relatively lower intake of proteins, iron, zinc and vitamin E., Conclusions: An obvious deficiency of dietary nutrient intake was found among children with CHD, especially CHD with malnutrition. Dietary intake related to the nutritional status of children with CHD. The gap between actual consumption and recommendation indicates a need for improved nutritional counseling and monitoring. Early interventions targeting the dietary intakes of children with CHD may be a benefit for long-term effects associated with nutritional status.

Endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) is involved in a variety of diseases. Recently, it was found that ERS induces not only apoptosis but also autophagy. Previous studies showed that inhibition of autophagy alleviates cell injury. The purpose of our study was to investigate the involvement of the R-like ER kinase (PERK) in ERS-induced autophagy in H9c2 cardiomyoblasts. To address this aim, therefore, H9c2 cells were treated with PERK agonist and inhibitor after establishment of rapamycin-induced ERS models in H9c2 cardiomyoblasts. Transmission electron microscopy and immunofluorescence staining were used to detect degrees of ERS-induced autophagy, apoptosis and myocardial fibrosis. Western blotting was employed to detect the levels of total and phosphorylated PERK, light chain 3 (LC3), P62, Caspase3, Bcl2 and Bax. Immunofluorescence staining was used to assess α-SMA density. TGF-β induced H9c2 cardiomyoblasts time-dependently upregulated col I, col III, FN, and LC3 expressions, PERK phosphorylation and α-SMA density, and downregulated P62 level compared with control cells. Treatment with PERK agonist and inhibitor respectively increased and decreased LC3 expression, conversely in P62 level, which is consistent with effect of ERS agonists and inhibitors. And a PERK inhibitor upregulated the expressions of Caspase3 and Bax, and downregulated Bcl2 level, which developed H9c2 cardiomyoblasts. Moreover, siRNA-mediated knockdown of PERK reduced ERS mediated autophagy activity and increased cells apoptosis. On the other hand, elevated autophagy activity could downregulated PERK level. Our finding showed that PERK activity mediates upregulation of ERS-induced autophagy and regulation of cardiomyocyte apoptosis in H9c2 cardiomyoblasts.

Patients with myocardial ischemic diseases or who are undergoing one of various heart treatments, such as open heart surgery, coronary artery bypass grafting, percutaneous coronary artery intervention or drug thrombolysis, face myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury (MIRI). However, no effective treatment is currently available for MIRI. To improve the prognosis of people with cardiovascular disease, it is important to research the mechanism of MIRI. Arachidonic acid (AA) is one of the focuses of current research. The various metabolic pathways of AA are closely related to the development of cardiovascular disease, and the roles of various metabolites in ischemia-reperfusion injury have gradually been confirmed. AA is mainly metabolized in the cyclooxygenase (COX) pathway, lipoxygenase (LOX) pathway, and cytochrome P450 monooxygenase (CYP) pathway. This paper summarizes the progress of research on these three major AA metabolic pathways with respect to MIRI.

To analyze the anti-tumor mechanism of Baicalin in human colon cancer. The MTT assay and colony formation assay demonstrated that Baicalin treatment inhibits the proliferation of DLD1 and HCT-116 cells. The apoptosis rates were induced upon Baicalin treatment and which was determined by FACS. The qPCR and western blot analysis showed that Baicalin promotes expression of DKK1 (Dickkopf), an important antagonist of Wnt signaling pathway, thereby reduces the expression of its downstream protein β-catenin and c-Myc. Reduction of DKK1 expression by siRNA attenuates β-catenin and c-Myc expression. microRNA-217 (miR-217) is decreased upon Baicalin treatment. Moreover, DKK1 is identified as the direct downstream target gene of miR-217 through the dual-luciferase reporter assay. miR-217/DKK1-mediated inhibition of Wnt signaling pathway participate in apoptosis induced by Baicalin.

Cronobacter spp. have been linked to clinical cases of infection in both adults and infants. Enrichment of Cronobacter spp. before detection has been necessary but is quite time consuming. Hence, we sought to develop an immunomagnetic separation (IMS) PCR method that could shorten the time of enrichment before the detection of Cronobacter spp. The polyclonal antibody used in this immunomagnetic separation was prepared based on the outer membrane protein A of Cronobacter sakazakii China Center of Industrial Culture Collection 21560 and had high specificity to the target. The primers used in the IMS-PCR method also showed high specificity. The detection limit of IMS-PCR for pure C. sakazakii culture was 5.2 × 10 2 cfu/mL. Cronobacter sakazakii in artificially contaminated powdered infant formula (PIF) was also detected at a detection limit of 5.2 × 10 2 cfu/mL. After 8 h of enrichment, the detection limit in PIF was lower than 5.2 × 10 1 cfu/mL. An interference test using Escherichia coli in artificially contaminated PIF showed that the IMS-PCR method developed in this study had a good ability to resist interference. Finally, the IMS-PCR method was applied to the detection of Cronobacter in food samples and was shown to be reliable. Thus, this newly developed IMS-PCR detection method was quite sensitive, rapid, and reliable and could be applied to the detection of Cronobacter in foods., (Copyright © 2017 American Dairy Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

A novel real-time PCR (qPCR) assay with internal amplification control based on the rpoB gene was developed for the detection and quantification of Cronobacter spp. Inclusivity and exclusivity of the qPCR assay were tested on a strain collection containing 19 Cronobacter and 26 non-Cronobacter strains. All Cronobacter strains were successfully identified, whereas no cross-reactivity was observed with non-Cronobacter strains. The sensitivity of the qPCR assay for pure culture and powdered infant formula (PIF) without enrichment was 3.44 log CFU/ml(g) (2.74 × 10(3) CFU/ml(g)). When the qPCR assay was applied to artificially contaminated PIF after a 12-h enrichment step, as few as 0.03 log CFU/ml (1.06 × 10(0) CFU/ml) of C. sakazakii could be detected. The limit of detection of the qPCR assay was not reduced by the presence of 8 log CFU/ml of Salmonella Enteritidis in PIF. A total of 70 food samples were analyzed for the presence of Cronobacter spp., out of which 3 dry cereal products, 5 maternal milk, and 1 infant food formula were found as positive by qPCR. The results obtained by qPCR were consistent with those obtained by culture-based method. Results from this study demonstrate that the qPCR assay is a rapid, specific, and accurate method suitable for Cronobacter detection in foods.

Interleukin (IL)-17A has an important role in myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury, and vagal stimulation (VS) has been demonstrated to exert cardioprotective effects. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of VS on a rat model of myocardial I/R injury, and detected an association between VS and IL-17A. Anesthetized rats underwent VS (2 msec; 10 Hz) or were treated with anti-IL-17A neutralized monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) (200 µg; iv), and subjected to ischemia for 30 min prior to 4 h reperfusion. The following parameters were measured: Infarct size; lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), creatine kinase (CK), malondialdehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and caspase-3 activity levels; tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and IL-6 expression levels; and the percentage of terminal deoxynucleotidyl-transferase mediated dUTP nick-end labeling (TUNEL) positive cells. High mobility group box 1 protein (HMGB1) and IL-17A expression levels were assessed by immunoblotting. Following 4 h reperfusion, VS was able to significantly decrease the infarct size and the activity levels of LDH and CK (P<0.05). Furthermore, VS administration significantly suppressed the increased MDA and decreased SOD activity levels, and significantly reduced caspase-3 activity and the percentage of TUNEL-positive cells (P<0.05). Treatment with anti-IL-17A mAbs demonstrated the same effects as VS. Furthermore, VS was able to significantly inhibit the increased expression levels of TNF-α, IL-6, HMGB1 and IL-17A induced by I/R (P<0.05). The results of the present study suggested that VS may attenuate myocardial I/R injury by reducing the expression of inflammatory cytokines, oxidative stress and the apoptosis of cardiomyocytes. Furthermore, VS may induce cardioprotective effects, which may be associated with the inhibition of IL-17A expression.

Background: The objective of this study was to compare the expression of heat shock proteins (HSPs) between rheumatic heart disease (RHD) patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) and RHD patients without AF, and its efficacy in predicting the occurrence of AF in RHD patients., Methods: Ninety-five patients were enrolled in our study, including 60 RHD patients with AF, and 35 RHD patients without AF. The baseline characteristics of the patients such as gender, age, AF duration, left atrial diameter and left ventricular ejection fraction were collected, and erythrocyte sedimentation rate and high-sensitivity C-reaction protein were measured from all patients. Tissue samples were obtained from the right atrial appendage during open-heart surgery and then detected using immunohistochemical methods and Western blot with HSP27, HSP60, HSP70 and HSP90 antibodies., Results: Compared with RHD patients without AF, the density of HSP27 positive protein in RHD patients with AF was significantly lower. The density of HSP60, HSP70 or HSP90 antibodies did not indicate significant difference between the two groups. Use of the Western blot experiment showed consistent results with immunohistochemical staining. In RHD patients with AF, the expression level of HSP27 protein was negatively associated with AF duration and left atrial diameter. Left atrial enlargement and low expression of HSP27 were the independent predictors of AF., Conclusions: The decreased expression level of HSP27 is associated with AF in RHD patients., Key Words: Atrial fibrillation; Heat shock protein; Rheumatic heart disease.

Background: Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been used for acne, however, the efficacy and safety need to be determined., Objective: To assess the effects and safety of PDT for acne using an evidence-based approach., Methods: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the treatment of acne with PDT were identified by searching PubMed, CNKI and the Cochrane Library., Results: A total of 14 RCTs involving 492 patients were included. Photosensitizers included aminolevulinic acid (ALA), methylaminolevulinate (MAL), and indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). Light sources included red light, pulsed dye laser (PDL), intense pulsed light (IPL), long-pulsed dye laser (LPDL) and green light. The PDT protocols, including ALA + red light, ALA + PDL, ALA + IPL, MAL + red light, and MAL + LPDL, all showed great efficacy on inflammatory lesions. ALA + red light also had effects on non-inflammatory lesions and sebum secretion. ALA + IPL and IAA + green light significantly decreased sebum secretion. Triple treatment protocols showed great improvement on inflammatory and non-inflammatory lesions. Increasing ALA concentration, ALA incubation time, PDT sessions, dose of light source or using occlusion for photosensitizers, or a combination of other treatments with PDT may achieve greater efficacy. The common side effects of PDT were tolerable and transient., Conclusion: Limited evidence indicates that PDT shows good efficacy in the treatment of acne with acceptable side effects. ALA + red light was shown to be the optimal choice. However, more RCTs are needed to determine the types and concentrations of photosensitizers and light sources, and the duration of light activation and incubation.

Chromosomal translocations involving the human CBFB gene, which codes for the non-DNA binding subunit of CBF (CBF beta), are associated with a large percentage of human leukemias. The translocation inv(16) that disrupts the CBFB gene produces a chimeric protein composed of the heterodimerization domain of CBF beta fused to the C-terminal coiled-coil domain from smooth muscle myosin heavy chain (CBF beta-SMMHC). Isothermal titration calorimetry results show that this fusion protein binds the Runt domain from Runx1 (CBF alpha) with higher affinity than the native CBF beta protein. NMR studies identify interactions in the CBF beta portion of the molecule, as well as the SMMHC coiled-coil domain. This higher affinity provides an explanation for the dominant negative phenotype associated with a knock-in of the CBFB-MYH11 gene and also helps to provide a rationale for the leukemia-associated dysregulation of hematopoietic development that this protein causes.