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Objective: Rare disease Background: Schwannomas are tumors that arise from Schwann cells that surround and support nerve cells. Most common sites for presentations are head, neck, and extremities. Schwannomas of gastrointestinal tract are rare, slowgrowing tumors, usually benign, arising from gastrointestinal tract's neural plexus. They are histologically distinguishable from conventional schwannomas that arise in soft tissue or the central nervous system. Preoperative diagnosis of gastrointestinal schwannoma is challenging, requiring immunohistological confirmation of the nature of the tumor. Here, we report a case of 57-year-old woman with an incidental finding of an asymptomatic submucosal jejunal schwannoma. Case Report: A 57-year-old woman with a medical history of hematological disorder underwent a contrast abdominal computed tomography as part of medical follow-up. The imaging revealed the presence of a jejunal mass. The patient underwent laparoscopic surgical resection of the lesion, followed by side-to-side jejuno-jejunal anastomosis with 4-cm clear surgical margins. The final pathologic study revealed the presence of jejunal schwannoma, as tested positive for S-100 protein. The patient was discharged home on the fourth postoperative day, having an uneventful recovery. Conclusions: Jejunal schwannoma are usually benign and asymptomatic, and they are often discovered incidentally during diagnostic tests for other conditions; therefore, it should be included in the differential diagnosis of gastrointestinal tumors. Surgical treatment appears to be necessary to achieve a definitive diagnosis through a biopsy of the tumor tissue. Benign jejunal schwannomas have a good prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is considered one of the most common chronic liver diseases. Modern lifestyle, characterized by increasing rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), has led to a “pandemic” of NAFLD that imposes a personal health and socioeconomic burden. Apart from overnutrition and insulin resistance, various metabolic aberrations, gut microbiota and genetic predispositions are involved in the pathogenesis of the disease. The multifactorial nature of NAFLD’s pathogenesis makes the development of pharmacological therapies for patients with this disease challenging. Sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT-2i) are antidiabetic agents that reduce blood glucose mainly by increasing its renal excretion. As T2DM is one of the major contributors to NAFLD, SGLT-2i have emerged as promising agents for the management of NAFLD. In this review, we summarize the main animal studies on SGLT-2i in models of NAFLD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Far-red Sun-Induced chlorophyll Fluorescence (SIF) is increasingly used as a proxy of vegetation Gross Primary Production (GPP) across different ecosystems and at spatiotemporal resolutions going from proximal to satellite-based remote sensing measurements. However, the use of SIF to probe variations in GPP in forests is challenged by (1) confounding factors such as canopy structure and sun-canopy geometry, and by (2) leaf physiological and biochemical properties along with abiotic factors (light intensity, temperature, soil water content, atmospheric vapour pressure deficit, etc.) that can influence SIF and GPP in a different way. To provide insights into understanding the complex drivers of GPP and SIF variations and of their relationships, we examined how SIF and GPP changed at daily and seasonal scales and how canopy structure and environmental conditions affected SIF and GPP relationships in a deciduous oak forest. To do so, we combined canopy scale SIF measurements, spectral vegetation indices, environmental variables measurements, including diffuse and direct radiations in the spectral range of the Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR), air and canopy temperature, soil water content (SWC), atmospheric Vapour Pressure Deficit (VPD), and GPP estimated from eddy covariance measurements. Canopy chlorophyll fluorescence was also measured using an active system with an artificial light source, referred to as LIF (LED Induced chlorophyll Fluorescence) hereafter. Further, Random Forest (RF) models were used to predict SIF and GPP and to analyse the responses of SIF and GPP to environmental drivers. The results show that both SIF and GPP variations and their relationships were dependent on the temporal scale considered. At the seasonal scale, The data show that leaf and canopy properties variations, seasonal cycle of PAR, and other abiotic factors such as VPD and SWC control not only SIF and GPP variations, but also their relationships. Further, during extreme weather conditions (heatwaves observed in 2022 in: mid-June (DOY: 166-169), mid-July (DOY: 196-199), and early August (DOY: 218-224)), we observed that SIF and reflectance-based Vegetation Indices (VIs), such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Near-Infrared Reflectance of vegetation index (NIRv), and also SIF and PAR are uncorrelated, while GPP, SIF, passive SIF yield (SIFy) and active chlorophyll fluorescence yield (FyieldLIF) strongly decreased. This indicates that during these severe abiotic conditions SIF stayed a usable proxy of GPP, while VIs cannot be used to track changes in vegetation physiology. This specific response of SIF compared to VIs underlined the interest of SIF to monitor GPP under severe abiotic conditions. At the diurnal timescale, the results also revealed that the saturation of the relationship between GPP and SIF was not only dependent on PAR, but also on the fraction of diffuse to total PAR, as well as on VPD, SWC, and air and canopy temperature. The other key finding was that sun geometry angles had strong effects on GPP and SIF variations. This result highlights that using ground-based SIF measurements to validate satellite measurements at coarse spatial and temporal resolutions can therefore be very difficult, due to confounding factors whose effects are significant and may vary from one site to another, especially in forest canopies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In COPD, chronic inflammation and exposure to irritants, such as cigarette smoke, lead to the thickening of bronchial walls. This results from increased deposition of collagen and other extracellular matrix components, contributing to the narrowing of airways. Nevertheless, it is widely recognized that COPD is an inflammatory disorder marked by partially reversible airflow limitation wherein genetic factors interact with the environment. In recent years, numerous investigations have substantiated the correlation between gene polymorphisms and COPD. SUMF1 has been implicated in diverse cellular processes, including lysosomal function and extracellular matrix maintenance, both of which play pivotal roles in respiratory health. The genetic variations in SUMF1 could lead to an imbalanced sulfation in the extracellular matrix of lung tissue, potentially playing a role in the onset of COPD. Recent studies have uncovered a potential link between dysregulation of SUMF1 and COPD progression, shedding light on its involvement in the abnormal sulfatase activity observed in COPD patients. Through a comprehensive review of current literature and experimental findings, this article aims to contribute to the growing body of knowledge surrounding the genetic intricacies concerning sulfation of airway remodeling and possible pharmacological applications in COPD and asthma management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data from satellite, aircraft, drone, and ground-based measurements have already shown that canopy-scale sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) is tightly related to photosynthesis, which is linked to vegetation carbon assimilation. However, our ability to effectively use those findings are hindered by confounding factors, including canopy structure, fluctuations in solar radiation, and sun–canopy geometry that highly affect the SIF signal. Thus, disentangling these factors has become paramount in order to use SIF for monitoring vegetation functioning at the canopy scale and beyond. Active chlorophyll fluorescence measurements (FyieldLIF), which directly measures the apparent fluorescence yield, have been widely used to detect physiological variation of the vegetation at the leaf scale. Recently, the measurement of FyieldLIF has become feasible at the canopy scale, opening up new opportunities to decouple structural, biophysical, and physiological components of SIF at the canopy scale. In this study, based on top-of-canopy measurements above a mature deciduous forest, reflectance (R), SIF, SIF normalized by incoming photosynthetically active radiation (SIF y), FyieldLIF , and the ratio between SIF y and FyieldLIF (named Φk) were used to investigate the effects of canopy structure and shadows on the diurnal and seasonal dynamics of SIF. Further, random forest (RF) models were also used to not only predict FyieldLIF and Φk , but also provide an interpretation framework by considering additional variables, including the R in the blue, red, green, red-edge, and near-infrared bands; SIF; SIF y ; and solar zenith angle (SZA) and solar azimuth angle (SAA). Results revealed that the SIF signal is highly affected by the canopy structure and sun–canopy geometry effects compared to FyieldLIF. This was evidenced by the weak correlations obtained between SIF y and FyieldLIF at the diurnal timescale. Furthermore, the daily mean SIF‾y captured the seasonal dynamics of daily mean F‾yieldLIF and explained 58 % of its variability. The findings also revealed that reflectance in the near-infrared (R -NIR) and the NIR v (the product of R -NIR and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)) are good proxies of Φk at the diurnal timescale, while their correlations with Φk decrease at the seasonal timescale. With FyieldLIF and Φk as outputs and the abovementioned variables as predictors, this study also showed that the RF models can explain between 86 % and 90 % of FyieldLIF , as well as 60 % and 70 % of Φk variations under clear-sky conditions. In addition, the predictor importance estimates for FyieldLIF RF models revealed that R at 410, 665, 740, and 830 nm; SIF; SIF y ; SZA; and SAA emerged as the most useful and influential factors for predicting FyieldLIF , while R at 410, 665, 705, and 740 nm; SZA; and SAA are crucial for predicting Φk. This study highlighted the complexity of interpreting diurnal and seasonal dynamics of SIF in forest canopies. These dynamics are highly dependent on the complex interactions between the structure of the canopy, the vegetation biochemical properties, the illumination angles (SZA and SAA), and the light conditions (ratio of diffuse to direct solar radiation). However, such measurements are necessary to better separate the variability in SIF attributable to radiation and measurement conditions from the subtler variability attributable to plant physiological processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disease and one of the leading causes of deaths worldwide. Numerous studies support that the Mediterranean diet has preventive and treatment effects on diabetes. These effects have been attributed to the special bioactive composition of Mediterranean foods. The objective of this work was to decipher the antidiabetic activity of Mediterranean edible plant materials using the DIA-DB inverse virtual screening web server. A literature review on the antidiabetic potential of Mediterranean plants was performed and twenty plants were selected for further examination. Subsequently, the most abundant flavonoids, phenolic acids, and terpenes in plant materials were studied to predict their antidiabetic activity. Results showed that flavonoids are the most active phytochemicals as they modulate the function of 17 protein-targets and present high structural similarity with antidiabetic drugs. Their antidiabetic effects are linked with three mechanisms of action, namely (i) regulation of insulin secretion/sensitivity, (ii) regulation of glucose metabolism, and (iii) regulation of lipid metabolism. Overall, the findings can be utilized to understand the antidiabetic activity of edible Mediterranean plants pinpointing the most active phytoconstituents.