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Yu Chen Xu,1,&ast; Qiu Qin Wang,1,&ast; Meng Yuan Chen,1 Yu Jie Gao,1 Jia Yi Wang,1 Hao Tian Ge,1 Heng Weng,1 Ju Ping Chen,2 Gui Hua Xu1 1School of Nursing, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, 210023, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Neurology, Changshu Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Suzhou, 215500, People’s Republic of China&ast;These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Gui Hua Xu, School of Nursing, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, 210023, People’s Republic of China, Email 7115@njucm.edu.cn Ju Ping Chen, Department of Neurology, Changshu Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Suzhou, 215500, People’s Republic of China, Email 1523515573@qq.comPurpose: Pain is a common yet undertreated symptom of Parkinson’s disease (PD). This study investigated the effect of Gua Sha therapy on pain in patients with PD.Patients and Methods: A total of 56 PD patients with pain were randomized into either the experimental group (n=28), receiving 12 sessions of Gua Sha therapy, or the control group (n=28) without additional treatment. Participants underwent assessment at baseline, after the twelfth invention, and at the 2-month follow-up timepoints. The primary outcome was KPPS and VAS. Secondary outcomes included UPDRS I–III, PDSS-2, HADS, PDQ-39, and blood biomarkers (5-HT, IL-8, IL-10).Results: The experimental group reported a significant improvement in pain severity, motor functions, affective disorder, and sleep quality (P < 0.05). Furthermore, increasing trends in both 5-HT and IL-10, as well as decreasing trends in IL-8 were observed. No serious adverse events occurred.Conclusion: The preliminary findings suggest that Gua Sha therapy may be effective and safe for alleviating pain and improving other disease-related symptoms in PD patients.Keywords: Parkinson’s disease, pain, Gua Sha therapy, randomized controlled trial

Background: Lymphovascular invasion (LVI) and perineural invasion (PNI) are important prognostic factors for gastric cancer (GC) that indicate an increased risk of metastasis and poor outcomes. Accurate preoperative prediction of LVI/PNI status could help clinicians identify high-risk patients and guide treatment decisions. However, prior models using conventional computed tomography (CT) images to predict LVI or PNI separately have had limited accuracy. Spectral CT provides quantitative enhancement parameters that may better capture tumor invasion. We hypothesized that a predictive model combining clinical and spectral CT parameters would accurately preoperatively predict LVI/PNI status in GC patients., Aim: To develop and test a machine learning model that fuses spectral CT parameters and clinical indicators to predict LVI/PNI status accurately., Methods: This study used a retrospective dataset involving 257 GC patients (training cohort, n = 172; validation cohort, n = 85). First, several clinical indicators, including serum tumor markers, CT-TN stages and CT-detected extramural vein invasion (CT-EMVI), were extracted, as were quantitative spectral CT parameters from the delineated tumor regions. Next, a two-step feature selection approach using correlation-based methods and information gain ranking inside a 10-fold cross-validation loop was utilized to select informative clinical and spectral CT parameters. A logistic regression (LR)-based nomogram model was subsequently constructed to predict LVI/PNI status, and its performance was evaluated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC)., Results: In both the training and validation cohorts, CT T3-4 stage, CT-N positive status, and CT-EMVI positive status are more prevalent in the LVI/PNI-positive group and these differences are statistically significant ( P < 0.05). LR analysis of the training group showed preoperative CT-T stage, CT-EMVI, single-energy CT values of 70 keV of venous phase (VP-70 keV), and the ratio of standardized iodine concentration of equilibrium phase (EP-NIC) were independent influencing factors. The AUCs of VP-70 keV and EP-NIC were 0.888 and 0.824, respectively, which were slightly greater than those of CT-T and CT-EMVI (AUC = 0.793, 0.762). The nomogram combining CT-T stage, CT-EMVI, VP-70 keV and EP-NIC yielded AUCs of 0.918 (0.866-0.954) and 0.874 (0.784-0.936) in the training and validation cohorts, which are significantly higher than using each of single independent factors ( P < 0.05)., Conclusion: The study found that using portal venous and EP spectral CT parameters allows effective preoperative detection of LVI/PNI in GC, with accuracy boosted by integrating clinical markers., Competing Interests: Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article., (©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.)

Previous studies have shown that high blood glucose-induced chronic microinflammation can cause inflammatory podocyte injury in patients with diabetic kidney disease(DKD). Therein, necroptosis is a new form of podocyte death that is closely associated with renal fibrosis(RF). To explore the effects and mechanisms in vivo of total flavones of Abelmoschus manihot(TFA), an extract from traditional Chinese herbal medicine Abelmoschus manihot for treating kidney diseases, on podocyte necroptosis and RF in DKD, and to further reveal its scientific connotation with multi-pathway and multi-target, the authors randomly divided all rats into four groups: a namely normal group, a model group, a TFA group and a rapamycin(RAP) group. After the modified DKD rat models were successfully established, four group rats were given double-distilled water, TFA suspension and RAP suspension, respectively by gavage every day. At the end of the 4th week of drug treatment, all rats were sacrificed, and the samples of their urine, blood and kidneys were collected. And then, the various indicators related to podocyte necroptosis and RF in the DKD model rats were observed, detected and analyzed, respectively. The results indicated that, general condition, body weight(BW), serum creatinine(Scr), urinary albumin(UAlb), and kidney hypertrophy index(KHI) in these modified DKD model rats were both improved by TFA and RAP. Indicators of RF, including glomerular histomorphological characteristics, fibronectin(FN) and collagen type Ⅰ(collagen Ⅰ) staining extent in glomeruli, as well as the protein expression levels of FN, collagen Ⅰ, transforming growth factor-β1(TGF-β1) and Smad2/3 in the kidneys were improved respectively by TFA and RAP. Podocyte damage, including foot process form and the protein expression levels of podocin and CD2AP in the kidneys was improved by TFA and RAP. In addition, tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α)-mediated podocyte necroptosis in the kidneys, including the morphological characteristics of podocyte necroptosis, the extent and levels of the protein expression of TNF-α and phosphorylated mixed lineage kinase domain like pseudokinase(p-MLKL) was improved respectively by TFA and RAP. Among them, RAP had the better effect on p-MLKL. More importantly, the activation of the receptor interacting serine/threonine protein kinase 1(RIPK1)/RIPK3/MLKL signaling axis in the kidneys, including the expression levels of its key signaling molecules, such as phosphorylated receptor interacting serine/threonine protein kinase 1(p-RIPK1), p-RIPK3, p-MLKL and cysteinyl aspartate specific proteinase-8(caspase-8) was improved respectively by TFA and RAP. Among them, the effect of TFA on p-RIPK1 was superior. On the whole, in this study, the authors demonstrated that TFA alleviates podocyte necroptosis and RF in DKD through inhibiting the activation of the TNF-α-mediated RIPK1/RIPK3/MLKL signaling axis in diabetic kidneys. The authors' findings provide new pharmacological evidence to reveal the scientific connotation of TFA in treating RF in DKD in more depth.

Fruit abscission is a severe hindrance to commercial crop production, and a lack of carbohydrates causes fruit abscission to intensify in a variety of plant species. However, the precise mechanism by which carbohydrates affect fruit setting potential has yet to be determined. In the current study, we noticed negative correlation between hexose level and fruit setting by comparing different cultivars, bearing shoots of varying diameters, and girdling and defoliation treatments. The cumulative fruit-dropping rate was significantly reduced in response to exogenous glucose dipping. These results suggested that hexose, especially glucose, is the key player in lowering litchi fruit abscission. Moreover, five putative litchi hexokinase genes (LcHXKs) were isolated and the subcellular localization as well as activity of their expressed proteins in catalyzing hexose phosphorylation were investigated. LcHXK2 was only found in mitochondria and expressed catalytic protein, whereas the other four HXKs were found in both mitochondria and nuclei and had no activity in catalyzing hexose phosphorylation. LcHXK1 and LcHXK4 were found in the same cluster as previously reported hexose sensors AtHXK1 and MdHXK1. Furthermore, VIGS-mediated silencing assay confirms that LcHXK1 suppression increases fruit abscission. These findings revealed that LcHXK1 functions as hexose sensor, negatively regulating litchi fruit abscission., (© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

A comprehensive analytical method based on ultra-fast liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole/linear ion trap tandem mass spectrometry(UFLC-QTRAP-MS/MS) was established for simultaneous determination of the content of 38 active components in Abelmoschi Corolla, including flavonoids, organic acids, nucleosides and amino acids, so as to investigate the effects of different harvesting and processing methods on multi-active components in Abelmoschi Corolla. The chromatographic separation was performed on a XBridg®C&#95;(18) column(4.6 mm×100 mm, 3.5 μm) with(0.1% formic acid water) methanol-acetonitrile(1∶1) as the mobile phase for gradient elution at 30 ℃. The flow rate was 0.5 mL·min~(-1). The components were detected in a multiple-reaction monitoring(MRM) mode. The gray relational analysis(GRA) was used to comprehensively evaluate the multiple active components of Abelmoschi Corolla at different harvesting times and drying temperatures. The results showed that 38 components had a good linearity with correlation coefficients all above 0.999 0. The method featured a good precision, repeatability and stability with the relative stan-dard deviations(RSDs) of less than 5.0%. Recoveries ranged from 98.06% to 104.4% with RSD between 0.22% and 4.9%. The results of GRA indicated that a better quality in the samples collected on September 9 th. Samples dried at 90 ℃ had a better quality. The established method is accurate and reliable, and can be used to assess the internal quality of Abelmoschi Corolla. This study can provide basic materials for determining appropriate harvesting time and processing method of Abelmoschi Corolla.

Renal fibrosis is the final common pathological manifestation of almost all progressive chronic kidney diseases (CKD). Transient receptor potential canonical (TRPC) channels, especially TRPC3/6, were proposed to be essential therapeutic targets for kidney injury. Huangkui capsule (HKC), an important adjuvant therapy for CKD, showed superior efficacy for CKD at stages 1-2 in clinical practice. However, its anti-fibrotic effect and the underlying mechanisms remain to be investigated. In the present study, we evaluated the efficacy of HKC on renal fibrosis in a mouse model of unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO) and explored the potential underlying mechanism. Administration of HKC by intragastric gavage dose-dependently suppressed UUO-induced kidney injury and tubulointerstitial fibrosis. Similarly, HKC suppressed the expression level of α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), increased the expression of E-cadherin, and suppressed the mRNA expression of a plethora of proinflammatory mediators that are necessary for the progression of renal fibrosis. Mechanistically, HKC suppressed both canonical and non-canonical TGF-β signaling pathways in UUO mice as well as the TRPC6/calcineurin A (CnA)/nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFAT) signaling axis. In addition, TRPC6 knockout mice and HKC treated wild type mice displayed comparable protection on UUO-triggered kidney tubulointerstitial injury, interstitial fibrosis, and α-SMA expression. More importantly, HKC had no additional protective effect on UUO-triggered kidney tubulointerstitial injury and interstitial fibrosis in TRPC6 knockout mouse. Further investigation demonstrated that HKC could directly suppress TRPC3/6 channel activities. Considered together, these data demonstrated that the protective effect of HKC on renal injury and interstitial fibrosis is dependent on TRPC6, possibly through direct inhibition of TRPC6 channel activity and indirect suppression of TRPC6 expression., (Copyright © 2020 Gu, Ge, Zhao, Wang, Zhang, Tang, Cao, Yu and Chai.)

The promoter is a regulatory DNA region about 81-1000 base pairs long, usually located near the transcription start site (TSS) along upstream of a given gene. By combining a certain protein called transcription factor, the promoter provides the starting point for regulated gene transcription, and hence plays a vitally important role in gene transcriptional regulation. With explosive growth of DNA sequences in the post-genomic age, it has become an urgent challenge to develop computational method for effectively identifying promoters because the information thus obtained is very useful for both basic research and drug development. Although some prediction methods were developed in this regard, most of them were limited at merely identifying whether a query DNA sequence being of a promoter or not. However, based on their strength-distinct levels for transcriptional activation and expression, promoter should be divided into two categories: strong and weak types. Here a new two-layer predictor, called "iPSW(2L)-PseKNC", was developed by fusing the physicochemical properties of nucleotides and their nucleotide density into PseKNC (pseudo K-tuple nucleotide composition). Its 1st-layer serves to predict whether a query DNA sequence sample is of promoter or not, while its 2nd-layer is able to predict the strength of promoters. It has been observed through rigorous cross-validations that the 1st-layer sub-predictor is remarkably superior to the existing state-of-the-art predictors in identifying the promoters and non-promoters, and that the 2nd-layer sub-predictor can do what is beyond the reach of the existing predictors. Moreover, the web-server for iPSW(2L)-PseKNC has been established at http://www.jci-bioinfo.cn/iPSW(2L)-PseKNC, by which the majority of experimental scientists can easily get the results they need., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Compared to efficient green and near-infrared light-emitting diodes (LEDs), less progress has been made on deep-blue perovskite LEDs. They suffer from inefficient domain [various number of PbX 6 - layers (n)] control, resulting in a series of unfavorable issues such as unstable color, multipeak profile, and poor fluorescence yield. Here, a strategy involving a delicate spacer modulation for quasi-2D perovskite films via an introduction of aromatic polyamine molecules into the perovskite precursor is reported. With low-dimensional component engineering, the n 1 domain, which shows nonradiative recombination and retarded exciton transfer, is significantly suppressed. Also, the n 3 domain, which represents the population of emission species, is remarkably increased. The optimized quasi-2D perovskite film presents blue emission from the n 3 domain (peak at 465 nm) with a photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) as high as 77%. It enables the corresponding perovskite LEDs to deliver stable deep-blue emission (CIE (0.145, 0.05)) with an external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 2.6%. The findings in this work provide further understanding on the structural and emission properties of quasi-2D perovskites, which pave a new route to design deep-blue-emissive perovskite materials., (© 2019 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Membrane proteins play important functions not only as receptors and transporters, but also in many other important intracellular functions such as photosynthetic and respiratory electron transport. Identification of membrane proteins is a necessary step to understand their functions. Membrane proteins are generally highly hydrophobic and difficult to be resolved by aqueous solutions, and large-scale proteomic identification of membrane proteins has been a great technical challenge. Significant efforts have been invested in the field to improve the solubility of membrane proteins in aqueous solutions that are compatible for mass spectrometry analysis. This review summarizes the main technological achievements in the field of membrane proteomics particularly for the improvement of membrane protein identification, and uses the photosynthetic model cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC6803 as an example to illustrate how technology advances push forward the field in terms of the increased coverage of membrane proteome identification.

Background: Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) can act as competitive endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) to compete with mRNAs for binding miroRNAs (miRNAs). The dysregulated triplets, composed by mRNAs, lncRNAs, and miRNAs, contributed to the development and progression of diseases, such as cancer. However, the roles played by triplet biomarkers are not fully understand in glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) patient survival., Objectives: Here, we constructed a differential triplet interaction network (TriNet) between GBM and normal tissues and identified GBM survival related triplets., Methods: Four significantly dysregulated modules, enriched differentially expressed molecules, were identified by integrating affinity propagation method and hypergeometric method. Furthermore, knockdown of TP73-AS1 was implemented by siRNA and the expression of RFX1 was examined in U87 cells by qRT-PCR. The apoptosis of U87 cells was investigated using MTT assay and Acridine orange/Ethidium bromide (AO/EB) assay., Results: We randomly split GBM samples into training and testing sets, and found that these four modules can robustly and significantly distinguish low- and high-survival patients in both two sets. By manually curated literatures for triplets mediated by core interactions, we found that members involved tumor invasion, proliferation, and migration. The dysregulated triplets may cause the poor survival of GBM patients. We finally experimentally verified that knockdown of TP73-AS1, an lncRNA of one triplet, could not only reduce the expression of RFX1, an mRNA of this triplet, but also induce apoptosis in U87 cells., Conclusions: These results can provide further insights to understand the functions of triplet biomarkers that associated with GBM prognosis.

Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate functional abnormalities of the brain in females with migraine using magnetoencephalography (MEG) and a finger-tapping task., Methods: Twenty-nine female patients with migraine (aged 16-40years) and age- and gender-matched healthy controls were studied with an MEG system at a sampling rate of 6000Hz. MEG recordings were performed during an attack in migraineurs with and without aura. Neuromagnetic brain activation was elicited by a finger-tapping task. The latency and amplitude of neuromagnetic responses were analyzed with averaged waveforms in the frequency range of 5-100Hz. The Morlet wavelet and beamformers were used to analyze the spectral and spatial signatures of MEG data from subjects in two frequency ranges of 5-100 and 100-1000Hz., Results: The latency of motor-evoked magnetic fields evoked by finger movement was significantly prolonged in migraineurs as compared with controls. Neuromagnetic spectral power in the motor cortex in migraineurs was significantly elevated. There were significantly higher odds of activation in 5-30, 100-300 and 500-700Hz frequency ranges in the ipsilateral primary motor cortices and the supplementary motor area in migraineurs as compared with controls., Conclusions: Neuromagnetic signal abnormalities in this study suggest cortical hyperexcitability in females with migraine during migraine attack, which could be measured and analyzed with MEG signal in a frequency range of 5-1000Hz., Significance: These findings may help to identify neurophysiological biomarkers for studying mechanisms of migraine, and may facilitate to develop new therapeutic strategies for migraine by alterations in cortical excitability., (Copyright © 2014 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To explore the presence of functional connectivity between anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during the manipulation of attentional network test (ANT) and its relationship with behavioral performance., Methods: Functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed on 25 healthy subjects aged 17 - 20 years. And ANT was used as a paradigm. Functional connectivity between ACC-DLPFC was tested and correlation analysis conducted between functional connectivity coefficients and behavioral scores of ANT., Results: Significant functional connectivity between the dorsal ACC (dACC) with bilateral DLPFC was found. Furthermore, event-related functional connectivity coefficients between left dACC and left DLPFC were negatively associated with the behavioral scores of executive control (r = -0.63; P < 0.01)., Conclusion: Our findings provide new evidence that ACC and DLPFC are functionally connected and such functional connectivity has advantageous influence on executive control function of attention so as to contribute to our understanding of the integrated role of these brain regions in attentional network.

Objective: To study the effect of gamma linolenic acid (GLA) on atherogenesis in rats., Method: Sixty healthy male rats were randomly divided into 6 groups: normal contro 1, fed by normal feed; atherogenesis mode 1, fed by high lipid diet; positive control group 0.9 mg x kg(-1) x d(-1) of lovastatin and group IV 250 mg x kg(-1) x d(-1) duoxikang; high dose of 375 mg x kg(-1) x d(-1) GLA; low dose of 187.5 mg x kg(-1) x d(-1) GLA. After the model group received atherogenic diet for six weeks, serum triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) were detected by enzyme method to confirm the formation of atherogenic. After fed for another five weeks, morphologic atherosclerosis of aorta in rats was observed by HE staining methods. The blood samples were collected and serum TC, TG, HDL-C, LDL-C, T-AOC, HL, LPL, NO, NOS, MDA and GSH were determined., Result: GLA attenuated the formation of atherosclerotic plaques, inhibited the level of serum TC, TG, MDA, OX-LDL, NO, NOS, HL, LPL and LDL-C and increased the level of T-AOC., Conclusion: GLA might significantly attenuate the development of atherosclerosis in rats fed with high lipid diet through improving the antioxidation capacity of the body.