Search

Apical Lesions, one of the most common oral diseases, can be effectively detected in daily dental examinations by a periapical radiograph (PA). In the current popular endodontic treatment, most dentists spend a lot of time manually marking the lesion area. In order to reduce the burden on dentists, this paper proposes a convolutional neural network (CNN)-based regional analysis model for spical lesions for periapical radiographs. In this study, the database was provided by dentists with more than three years of practical experience, meeting the criteria for clinical practical application. The contributions of this work are (1) an advanced adaptive threshold preprocessing technique for image segmentation, which can achieve an accuracy rate of more than 96%; (2) a better and more intuitive apical lesions symptom enhancement technique; and (3) a model for apical lesions detection with an accuracy as high as 96.21%. Compared with existing state-of-the-art technology, the proposed model has improved the accuracy by more than 5%. The proposed model has successfully improved the automatic diagnosis of apical lesions. With the help of automation, dentists can focus more on technical and medical diagnoses, such as treatment, tooth cleaning, or medical communication. This proposal has been certified by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) with the certification number 202002030B0.

The traditional Chinese medicine Poria cum Radix Pini (PRP) is a fungal medicinal material that has been proven to play an important role in the treatment of arrhythmia. However, the mechanism of its effect on arrhythmia is still unclear. In this study, network pharmacology and metabolomics correlation analysis methods were used to determine the key targets, metabolites and potential pathways involved in the effects of PRP on arrhythmia. The results showed that PRP can significantly improve cardiac congestion, shorten the SV-BA interval and reduce the apoptosis of myocardial cells induced by barium chloride in zebrafish. By upregulating the expression of the ADORA1 protein and the levels of adenosine and cGMP metabolites in the cGMP-PKG signalling pathway, PRP can participate in ameliorating arrhythmia. Therefore, we believe that PRP shows great potential for the treatment of arrhythmia.

Menopause and associated renal complications are linked to systemic redox stress, and the causal factors remain unclear. As the role of Hypericum perforatum L. (HPL) in menopause-induced kidney disease therapy is still ambiguous, we aim to explore the effects of HPL on systemic redox stress under ovariectomy (OVX)-induced kidney dysfunction conditions. Here, using combined proteomic and metabolomic approaches, we constructed a multi-scaled “HPL-disease-gene-metabolite” network to generate a therapeutic “big picture” that indicated an important link between glutathione redox stress and kidney impairment. HPL exhibited the potential to maintain cellular redox homeostasis by inhibiting gamma-glutamyltransferase 1 (Ggt1) overexpression, along with promoting the efflux of accumulated toxic amino acids and their metabolites. Moreover, HPL restored alanyl-aminopeptidase (Anpep) expression and metabolite shifts, promoting antioxidative metabolite processing, and recovery. These findings provide a comprehensive description of OVX-induced glutathione redox stress at multiple levels and support HPL therapy as an effective modulator in renal tissues to locally influence the glutathione metabolism pathway and subsequent redox homeostasis.

Objectives: To investigate the feasibility of pulse transit time (PTT) as a quantitative measure of inspiratory effort in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Methods: Nineteen moderate to severe OSA patients were included to undergo overnight polysomnography simultaneously with esophageal pressure (Pes) and PTT. The quantitative relationships between the size of Pes variations (ΔPes) and PTT variations (ΔPTT) on a breath-by-breath basis in obstructive apneas were assessed. Results: A total of 19,833 breaths from 6,087 obstructive apneas were analyzed. There were good correlations with r = 0.779 ± 0.095 (mean ± SD) between ΔPes and ΔPTT based on overnight sleep. The correlation coefficients for supine and lateral position were of the approximated magnitude (r = 0.783 ± 0.060 and 0.757 ± 0.106, respectively), whereas they were lower in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep (r = 0.564 ± 0.140) compared with non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep (r = 0.787 ± 0.071). In NREM sleep, the regression lines of ΔPTT against ΔPes were plotted with intercepts (5.1 ± 2.1 ms) and slopes (0.35 ± 0.08 ms·cm H2O-1). Conclusions: PTT showed good ability in detecting changes of inspiratory effort in overnight sleep and was proved to be a clinically useful method in quantifying increases in inspiratory effort in NREM sleep. Hence, PTT has prospects to become an alternative to Pes in respiratory sleep studies. Copyright © 2011 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the veterinary study of Cao Shi-nuo and colleagues which analyzed the cloning and sequence of outer membrane protein gene of Aeromonas hydrophila. It states that the Aeromonas hydrophila was amplified through PCR sequence analysis. The homology of nucleotide sequence for the surface protein gene and amino acid level had shown that the Aeromonas hydrophila was porin and can be used in the development of vaccines.

Abstract Background Olfactory ensheathing cells (OEC), specialized glia that ensheathe bundles of olfactory nerves, have been reported as a favorable substrate for axonal regeneration. Grafting OEC to injured spinal cord appears to facilitate axonal regeneration although the functional recovery is limited. In an attempt to improve the growth-promoting properties of OEC, we transduced prostacyclin synthase (PGIS) to OEC via adenoviral (Ad) gene transfer and examined the effect of OEC with enhanced prostacyclin synthesis in co-culture and in vivo. Prostacyclin is a vasodilator, platelet anti-aggregatory and cytoprotective agent. Results Cultured OEC expressed high level of cyclooxygneases, but not PGIS. Infection of AdPGIS to OEC could selectively augument prostacyclin synthesis. When cocultured with either OEC or AdPGIS-OEC, neuronal cells were resistant to OGD-induced damage. The resulted OEC were further transplanted to the transected cavity of thoracic spinal cord injured (SCI) rats. By 6 weeks post-surgery, significant functional recovery in hind limbs occurred in OEC or AdPGIS-OEC transplanted SCI rats compared with nontreated SCI rats. At 10–12 weeks postgraft, AdPGIS-OEC transplanted SCI rats showed significantly better motor restoration than OEC transplanted SCI rats. Futhermore, regenerating fiber tracts in the distal spinal cord stump were found in 40–60% of AdPGIS-OEC transplanted SCI rats. Conclusions Enhanced synthesis of prostacyclin in grafted OEC improved fiber tract regeneration and functional restoration in spinal cord injured rats. These results suggest an important potential of prostacyclin in stimulating OEC therapeutic properties that are relevant for neural transplant therapies.

Hypericum perforatum L., which includes a wide range of bioactive substances and is sold as a functional food formulation, has been used as an alternative to estrogen replacement treatment to relieve menopausal syndromes. However, methods to track HPL mechanisms and link them to metabolism disorder regulation during menopause periods have been lacking. To investigate HPL function in endocrine-related metabolic recognition, we applied both global and targeted metabolomic methods on ovariectomised rat serum and urine metabolites for treatment-specific metabolic profiling and to explore biomarkers and deduce their mechanisms via 1H-NMR and HPLC–MS/MS techniques. Results from the comparison of metabolite levels of rats that underwent an ovariectomy (OVX) before and after the administration of different doses of HPL showed that HPL can reverse the disordered changes induced in multiple biomarkers by menopausal syndromes. Through screening, identification, and quantification of the differential regulatory metabolites, 23 metabolites involved in 4 major metabolic pathways, including the arginine, taurine, pyruvate and tryptophan metabolic pathways, were highlighted as important for explaining the mechanisms of HPL. These pathways may be applicable for explanations of other menopausal syndrome symptoms, such as depression and hot flashes, and the effects of other herbs rich in flavonoids with menopause remission potential.

The title compound, [Cu(C16H11BrN2)(C18H15P)2]BF4, is composed of one CuI atom, one 6-(4-bromophenyl)-2,2′-bipyridine (L) ligand, two triphenylphosphane molecules and one tetrafluoridoborate anion. The CuI ion is four-coordinated in a distorted tetrahedral configuration by two N atoms from L and two P atoms from triphenylphosphane ligands. In the L ligand, the two pyridine rings are not coplanar; the mean planes making a dihedral angle of 15.3 (5)°. In the crystal, the ions are linked by weak C—H...F interactions.