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For investigating an influence on butylphthalide sodium chloride injection combined with edaravone dexborneol on neurological function and serum inflammatory factor levels in sufferers having acute ischemic stroke, 120 sufferers having acute ischemic stroke from September 2020 to September 2021 are chosen for the study subjects. In line with the diverse therapies, they took part in a control group and the study group, with 60 examples in each group. The control group is treated with edaravone dexborneol, and the study group is treated with butylphthalide sodium chloride injection, based on the control group. The posttreatment curative efficacy on the two groups is recorded, and treatment of both the two groups is compared. Before and after neurological function indexes (NIHSS and mRS), inflammatory factor indexes (IL-6, CRP, and TNF-α), life quality index (Barthel index), hemorheological indexes (plasma-specific viscosity), and neurological levels of NSE are logged and contrasted between the two groups of adverse reactions during therapy. Postcure, the overall response rate and Barthel index of the study group obviously overtop those of the control group ( p p p > 0.05). Butylphthalide sodium chloride injection combined with edaravone dexborneol can enhance curative efficacy on sufferers having acute ischemic stroke, improve neurological function, blood rheology, and quality of life, and decrease the secretion of cytokine, having a better effect and high medication safety.

A functionally graded Ni-Al coating can improve the hardness of low-carbon steel, which can then adapt to various conditions due to a high hardness. The primary purpose of this research was the preparation of a Ni-Al coating by adopting a two-step method including nickel plating and pack aluminizing. The coating phase and morphology were characterized with XRD, SEM and EDS. Subsequently, the hardness of the Ni-Al coating was measured using a nanoindentation test. The results show that different aluminum contents in the coating surface lead to different coating phases, mainly Ni2Al3. The change in the coating phases conformed to the Ni-Al binary phase diagram. The Ni-Al coating showed a continuous gradient structure and composition. In addition, the coating also showed continuous gradient variation, relating to the hardness.

Selective endoscopic coagulation of a nasal bleeding vessel is an effective means of treating epistaxis. Precisely locating the bleeding site(s) is critical.To investigate the utility of combining a negative pressure suction device and endoscope in locating bleeding sites of refractory epistaxis.A total of 116 patients with refractory epistaxis, who underwent systematic endoscopic exploration under local anesthesia in the absence of identifiable sites of bleeding were randomizely divided into two groupsCompared with the CG, there were statistically significant differences in length of hospital stay, rebleeding, and postoperative pain and complications (allCombining a negative pressure suction device and endoscope was a safe and effective technique for accurately locating bleeding sites in patients with refractory epistaxis.

Conventional EUS plays an important role in identifying pancreatic cancer. However, the accuracy of EUS is strongly influenced by the operator's experience in performing EUS. Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being used in various clinical diagnoses, especially in terms of image classification. This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic test accuracy of AI for the prediction of pancreatic cancer using EUS images. We searched the Embase, PubMed, and Cochrane Library databases to identify studies that used endoscopic ultrasound images of pancreatic cancer and AI to predict the diagnostic accuracy of pancreatic cancer. Two reviewers extracted the data independently. The risk of bias of eligible studies was assessed using a Deek funnel plot. The quality of the included studies was measured by the QUDAS-2 tool. Seven studies involving 1110 participants were included: 634 participants with pancreatic cancer and 476 participants with nonpancreatic cancer. The accuracy of the AI for the prediction of pancreatic cancer (area under the curve) was 0.95 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.93-0.97), with a corresponding pooled sensitivity of 93% (95% CI, 0.90-0.95), specificity of 90% (95% CI, 0.8-0.95), positive likelihood ratio 9.1 (95% CI 4.4-18.6), negative likelihood ratio 0.08 (95% CI 0.06-0.11), and diagnostic odds ratio 114 (95% CI 56-236). The methodological quality in each study was found to be the source of heterogeneity in the meta-regression combined model, which was statistically significant (P = 0.01). There was no evidence of publication bias. The accuracy of AI in diagnosing pancreatic cancer appears to be reliable. Further research and investment in AI could lead to substantial improvements in screening and early diagnosis.

On the basis of the synergism of topoisomerase (Top) and histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors in antitumor therapy, a series of novel Top/HDAC dual inhibitors were designed and synthesized by the pharmacophore fusion strategy. After systematic structure-activity relationship studies, lead compound

The surface plasmon resonance (SPR) based on the two-dimensional (2D) materials is proposed to enhance the Goos–Hanchen (GH) shift. In MoSe2-graphene-coated heterostructure with different metals (Ag/Cu/Au), the GH shift is significantly enhanced. In order to realize high GH shift, the number of MoSe2 and graphene layer are optimized. Through comparative analysis, by using Ag as the metal, the best GH shift up to 434.7λ can be achieved with the MoSe2 and graphene monolayer. The optimum GH shifts of Au/Cu-MoSe2-graphene structures are 360.7λ and 190.1λ, respectively. Therefore, the highest GH shift corresponding to the sensitivity of 6.600 × 105λ/RIU is obtained by Ag–MoSe2–graphene structures. Moreover, the sensitivity of Au–MoSe2–graphene structures is 5.815 × 105λ/RIU, which is about 1000 times higher than the Au, Au–graphene, and Au–MoSe2 structure. The GH shift sensor with 2D-materialsan be extensive used in the fields of biological researches, optical sensing, and measurement.

With the progress of precision medicine treatment in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), individualized cancer-related examination and prediction is of great importance in this high malignant tumor, and antibody-dependent cell phagocytosis (ADCP) with changed pathways highly enrolled in the carcinogenesis of PDAC. High-throughput data of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma were downloaded and 160 differentially expressed ADCP-related genes (ARGs) were obtained. Secondly, GO and KEGG enrichment analyses show that ADCP is a pivotal biologic process in pancreatic carcinogenesis. Next, CALB2, NLGN2, NCAPG and SERTAD2 are identified through multivariate Cox regression. These 4 genes are confirmed with significant prognostic value in PDAC. Then, a risk score formula is constructed and tested in PDAC samples. Finally, the correlation between these 4 genes and M2 macrophage polarization was screened. Some pivotal differentially expressed ADCP-related genes and biologic processes, four pivotal subgroup was among identified in the protein-protein network, and hub genes was found in these sub group. Then, an ADCP-related formula was set: CALB2* 0.355526 + NLGN2* -0.86862 + NCAPG* 0.932348 + SERTAD2* 1.153568. Additionally, the significant correlation between M2 macrophage-infiltration and the expression of each genes in PDAC samples was identified. Finally, the somatic mutation landscape and sensitive chemotherapy drug between high risk group and low risk group was explored. This study provides a potential prognostic signature for predicting prognosis of PDAC patients and molecular insights of ADCP in PDAC, and the formula focusing on the prognosis of PDAC can be effective. These findings will contribute to the precision medicine of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma treatment.

The analysis and prediction of small molecule binding sites is very important for drug discovery and drug design. The traditional experimental methods for detecting small molecule binding sites are usually expensive and time consuming, and the tools for single species small molecule research are equally inefficient. In recent years, some algorithms for predicting binding sites of protein-small molecules have been developed based on the geometric and sequence characteristics of proteins. In this paper, we have proposed SmoPSI, a classification model based on the XGBoost algorithm for predicting the binding sites of small molecules, using protein sequence information. The model achieved better results with an AUC of 0.918 and an ACC of 0.913. The experimental results demonstrate that our method achieves high performances and outperforms many existing predictors. In addition, we also analyzed the binding residues and nonbinding residues and finally found the PSSM; hydrophilicity, hydrophobicity, charge, and hydrogen bonding have obviously different effects on the binding-site predictions.

The study of nucleic acid-binding protein (NBP) has important significance for us to understand critical intracellular activities, such as the transmission of cellular genetic information, cell metabolism, substance transport, and signal transduction. DNA-binding proteins (DBPs) and RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) interact through their diverse binding domains and different types of nucleic acid molecules. In this paper, we used a novel method that combines the CX algorithm and the fractal surfaces algorithm. This method gets the molecular volume and solvent surface area in the local area of the NBPs binding domain residues. Then, based on the algorithm results, the requisite domain residues are divided into three types: peak, flat, and valley. At the same time, we analyzed the solvent accessibility and secondary structural characteristics of the DBPs and RBPs binding domains. Finally, we found that there was an important difference in the distribution of peak residues and valley residues in the two types of NBPs binding domains. Similarly, there were significant differences in the solvent accessibility and secondary structural distribution of the two types of NBPs binding domains. To verify the existence of differences, we constructed SVM classifier to make a distinction between DBPs and RBPs using a 10-fold cross-validation method. Lastly, the SVM classification model achieves AUC of 78%. In summary, we have proposed a new perspective for the study of NBPs binding domains. This method not only calculates the geometric characteristics of the molecule, but also analyzes the protein properties associated with the structure, which will assist in the study of NBPs binding domains.

Protein-nucleic acids bindings play key roles in many biological processes. However, the biological mechanisms underlying these interactions are not fully understood. Understanding the interface features between protein and nucleic acids may offer insights into how proteins are coupled with nucleic acids. There is a lack of tools that insight into the features of interface in a protein at present. In this work, we developed the InPrNa tool, a graphical tool for protein-nucleic acids complexes that works seamlessly within the PyMOL and gives quick results including 3D visualization for the residue's structure. InPrNa provides three distinct visualization modes to highlight interface, detecting interface residues with different distance between protein and nucleic acid, marking physicochemical properties of the interface residues, and displaying three spatial structures of the interface residues. We also demonstrate the effectiveness of InPrNa's algorithm by contrast DNA binding proteins (DBPs) and RNA binding proteins (RBPs). These results show that DBPs and RBPs have significant differences in amino acids distribution and structural distribution. InPrNa may help for analysis the interface characteristics of proteins-nucleic acids in PyMOL, and can be particularly useful in rapidly pinpointing the interaction mode of proteins-nucleic acids interface. Availability: Freely available at https://github.com/HNUBioinformatics.

Background. With the progress of precision medicine treatment in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), individualized cancer-related medical examination and prediction are of great importance in this high malignant tumor and tumor-immune microenvironment with changed pathways highly enrolled in the carcinogenesis of PDAC. Methods. High-throughput data of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma were downloaded from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. After batch normalization, the enrichment pathway and relevant scores were identified by the enrichment of immune-related pathway signature using gene set variation analysis (GSVA). Then, cancerous subtype in TCGA and GEO samples was defined through the NMF methods by cancertypes packages in R software, respectively. Subsequently, the significance between the characteristics of each TCGA sample and cancer type and the significant prognosis-related pathway with risk score formula is calculated through t-test and univariate Cox analysis. Next, the prognostic value of gained risk score formula and each significant prognosis-related pathway were validated in TCGA and GEO samples by survival analysis. The pivotal hub genes in the enriched significant prognosis-related pathway are identified and validated, and the TIMER database was used to identify the potential role of hub genes in the PDAC immune environment. The potential role of hub genes is promoting the transdifferentiation of cancer-associated fibroblasts. Results. The enrichment pathway and relevant scores were identified by GSVA, and 3 subtypes of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma were defined in TCGA and GEO samples. The clinical stage, tumor node metastasis classification, and tumor grade are strongly relative to the subtype above in TCGA samples. A risk formula about GSVA significant pathway “GSE45365_WT_VS_IFNAR_KO_CD11B_DC_MCMV_INFECTION_DN ∗ 0.80 + HALLMARK_GLYCOLYSIS ∗ 16.8 + GSE19888_CTRL_VS_T_CELL_MEMBRANES_ACT_MAST_CELL_DN ∗ 14.4” was identified and validated in TCGA and GEO samples through survival analysis with significance. DCN, VCAN, B4GALT7, SDC1, SDC2, B3GALT6, B3GAT3, SDC3, GPC1, and XYLT2 were identified as hub genes in these GSVA significant pathways and validated in silico. Conclusions. Three pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma subtypes are identified, and an individualized GSVA immune pathway score-related prognostic risk score formula with 10 hub genes is identified and validated. The predicted function of the 10 upregulated hub genes in tumor-immune microenvironment was promoting the infiltration of cancer-associated fibroblasts. These findings will contribute to the precision medicine of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma treatment and tumor immune-related basic research.

Activation of the purinergic P2X7 receptor (P2X7R) has been associated with the development of experimental nephritis. Therefore, the current study aimed to explore the mechanism of P2X7R in renal injured mice with adriamycin (ADR) nephropathy. The protective effect of a P2X7R antagonist on the kidneys of mice with ADR nephropathy was also evaluated. Nephropathy was induced by a single intravenous injection of ADR (10.5 mg/kg). A total of 6 h before the model was established, the P2X7R antagonist A438079 (100, 200 and 300 µmol/kg) was injected into the mice, which was subsequently administered daily for 1 week by intraperitoneal injection. Subsequently, all mice were sacrificed, after which blood, 24 h-urine and the kidneys were collected. The levels of albumin (ALB) and total cholesterol (TC) in the serum, along with urine protein content at 24 h were determined using an automatic biochemical analyzer. The levels of IL-1β and IL-18 were additionally detected in the renal tissues by ELISA. Moreover, the expression of P2X7R, oxidized (ox)-low density lipoprotein (LDL), C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 16 (CXCL16), Bax, caspase-3 and NLRP3 in renal tissues was detected by immunohistochemistry. Apoptosis in the renal tissues was observed using the TUNEL assay. The results demonstrated that compared with the control group, decreased weight, increased proteinuria, decreased serum ALB and increased serum TC was observed in the ADR group. The expression of IL-1β, IL-18, P2X7R, ox-LDL, CXCL16, Bax, caspase-3 and NLRP3, as well as cellular apoptosis in the renal tissues of the ADR group, was significantly increased in the ADR group compared with the control. However, compared with the ADR group, the changes in all indices in the ADR + A438079 groups were attenuated. Overall, P2X7R, ox-LDL and CXCL16 may be associated with ADR nephropathy, while inhibition of P2X7R may reduce the expression of ox-LDL by downregulating the CXCL16 pathway to alleviate kidney injury in mice with ADR nephropathy. Furthermore, activated P2X7R may promote the release of inflammatory cytokines IL-1β and IL-18 through the downstream P2X7R/NLRP3 pathway and upregulate the expression of Bax and caspase-3 to promote apoptosis, which participates in the process of ADR nephropathy. Inhibiting P2X7R may also reduce the release of IL-1β and IL-18 by downregulating the P2X7R/NLRP3 pathway, downregulating the expression of Bax and caspase-3, and reducing apoptosis, thereby alleviating kidney injury in mice with ADR nephropathy.

In order to improve the performance of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensor, the structure based on two-dimensional (2D) of graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) are proposed to greatly enhance the Goos-H&auml, nchen (GH) shift. It is theoretically proved that GH shift can be significantly enhanced in SPR structure coated with gold (Au)-indium tin oxide (ITO)-TMDCs-graphene heterostructure. In order to realize high GH shifts, the number of TMDCs and graphene layer are optimized. The highest GH shift (&minus, 801.7 &lambda, ) is obtained by Au-ITO-MoSe2-graphene hybrid structure with MoSe2 monolayer and graphene bilayer, respectively. By analyzing the GH variation, the index sensitivity of such configuration can reach as high as 8.02 &times, 105 &lambda, /RIU, which is 293.24 times of the Au-ITO structure and 177.43 times of the Au-ITO-graphene structure. The proposed SPR biosensor can be widely used in the precision metrology and optical sensing.

This study investigated the effect of immobilized biosurfactant-producing bacteria on the bioremediation of diesel oil-contaminated seawater. Initially, a biosurfactant-producing bacterium, LQ2, was isolated from a marine cold-seep region, and identified as Vibrio sp. The biosurfactant produced by LQ2 was characterized as a phospholipid, exhibiting high surface activity with strong stability. Meanwhile, the inoculation of biochar-immobilized LQ2 demonstrated superior efficiency in removing diesel oil (94.7%, reduction from 169.2 mg to 8.91 mg) over a seven-day period compared to free-cell culture (54.4%), through both biodegradation and adsorption. In addition, the microbial growth and activity were greatly enhanced with the addition of immobilized LQ2. Further experiment showed that degradation-related genes, alkB and CYP450–1, were 3.8 and 15.2 times higher in the immobilized LQ2 treatment, respectively, than those in the free cell treatment. The findings obtained in this study suggest the feasibility of applying immobilized biosurfactant-producing bacteria, namely LQ2, in treating diesel oil-contaminated seawater.

Background DNA-binding proteins perform important functions in a great number of biological activities. DNA-binding proteins can interact with ssDNA (single-stranded DNA) or dsDNA (double-stranded DNA), and DNA-binding proteins can be categorized as single-stranded DNA-binding proteins (SSBs) and double-stranded DNA-binding proteins (DSBs). The identification of DNA-binding proteins from amino acid sequences can help to annotate protein functions and understand the binding specificity. In this study, we systematically consider a variety of schemes to represent protein sequences: OAAC (overall amino acid composition) features, dipeptide compositions, PSSM (position-specific scoring matrix profiles) and split amino acid composition (SAA), and then we adopt SVM (support vector machine) and RF (random forest) classification model to distinguish SSBs from DSBs. Results Our results suggest that some sequence features can significantly differentiate DSBs and SSBs. Evaluated by 10 fold cross-validation on the benchmark datasets, our prediction method can achieve the accuracy of 88.7% and AUC (area under the curve) of 0.919. Moreover, our method has good performance in independent testing. Conclusions Using various sequence-derived features, a novel method is proposed to distinguish DSBs and SSBs accurately. The method also explores novel features, which could be helpful to discover the binding specificity of DNA-binding proteins. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12859-017-1715-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Objective: To examine whether pharyngeal swallowing function is impaired in globus patients with swallowing difficulty by dynamic swallowing study. Methods: Dynamic swallowing studies were performed on 80 normal adult volunteers and 33 globus patients with swallowing difficulty. Objective parameters such as maximum displacement of the hyoid bone, pharyngeal transit time, pharyngeal constriction ratio, and maximum opening of the esophageal entrance were measured, which were closely associated with the pharyngeal swallowing function in the swallowing process. Results: There were no significant differences between globus patients and normal adults in hyoid bone displacement, pharyngeal transit time, pharyngeal constriction ratio, or maximum opening of the esophageal entrance (p > 0.05). Conclusion: The results of the dynamic swallowing study indicated that the pharyngeal swallowing function of globus patients was not impaired. Key words: Dynamic swallowing study; Globus; Pharynx; Swallowing function

Protein surface plays a key role in many biological processes. Most proteins participate in the life activities of cells via binding to other proteins or ligand molecules. It is an important work to study protein structure and function by analyzing the protein surface shape. Based on the CX algorithm and the 2D fngerprint-base method, we proposed a FCX method to identify the morphology of bulges and depressions on the protein surface. The experimental results show that the FCX algorithm has a more desirable outcome than CX algorithm. The FCX algorithm has a higher correlation with the convex and concave features than CX values with solvent accessibility, solvent accessibility, and B-factor’s Pearson correlation coefficient. This result shows that the FCX algorithm can describe the shape of the protein surface residues more accurately than the CX algorithm.

This paper details a quantitative joint Reynolds number, equivalence ratio, wall material, and quenching distance imaging experiment designed to investigate OH radical behavior near the wal...

This file contains the list of UniProt codes for non-redundant DNA-binding protein sets from UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot ( www.uniprot.org ). (DOCX 19Â kb)

This file contains the list of PDB codes for non-redundant DNA-binding protein independent sets from PDB ( www.rcsb.org/pdb/ ). (DOCX 16Â kb)

This file contains the results of leave-one-out cross validation. (DOCX 24Â kb)

This file contains the complete list of UniProt codes for the whole DNA-binding protein sets from UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot ( www.uniprot.org ). (DOCX 26Â kb)

Effects of CO2 dilution and composition on tip opening and flame OH radical distribution in laminar non-premixed Bunsen flame were investigated by using planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF) technique. Experiments were conducted at different component fractions diluted with CO2 at 20%, 25%, and 30%. The syngas were produced by biomass catalytic gasifying. Stretch rates were calculated and combined with OH-PLIF images and simulation. We conducted kinetic simulation to analyze the production of OH radical. Results show that as VH2 increases and hydrogen slightly increases, the effect of mass diffusion is enhanced, in addition, the value of stretch rate decreases, and the tip opening becomes further obvious. The profile of OH radical distribution also becomes broad. Finally, the total production rates of OH radicals increases with a rate less than 7.5%. Hence, the maximum value of OH radical counts is reduced by 33.33%, 27.92%, and 23.09%. Nonetheless, with the increasing addition of CO2, the effect of mass diffusion is weakened; besides, chemical reaction residence time increases, and the value of stretch rate increases; the tip opening is less obvious. Although the distribution area of OH was narrowed, its production decreased and the relative concentration of all OH radical decreased.

To observe the short and long-term efficacy of quick repositioning maneuver for posterior semicircular canal benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (PC-BPPV) in different age groups.The clinical data of 113 adult patients with single PC-BPPV who underwent quick repositioning maneuver from July 2009 to February 2015 were retrospectively analyzed. The quick repositioning maneuver was to roll the patient from involved side to healthy side in the coronal plane for 180° as quickly as possible. The patients were divided into 3 groups according to different ages: young group (45 years), middle-age group (45 ≤ age60 years) and old group (≥ 60 years). The short and long term outcomes of the three groups were observed.The left ear was involved in 58 cases (51.3%) and the right ear in 55 cases (48.7%). The short term improvement rates of the young, middle-age and the old groups were 92.5%, 93.6% and 92.3% respectively, and the long term improvement rate was 90.0%, 85.1% and 73.1% respectively. There was no significant difference among the three groups in short and long term outcomes (P0.05). The recurrence rate of the three groups was 5.0%, 6.4% and 15.4% respectively, also no significant difference (P0.05).The quick repositioning maneuver along the coronal plane for PC-BPPV has a definite effect for every age groups. The method is simple, rapid and easy to master, and the patients are tolerated the maneuver well without evident side effect.

To compare the advantages and disadvantages of real time recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) monitoring and conventional exposure during thyroid operation by Meta analysis.The published articles of randomized controlled clinical trials were searched in data bases to compare the therapeutic outcomes of using real-time RLN monitoring and conventional exposure in thyroid surgery. The quality of the searched original studies was assessed and the outcomes which are in line with the requirements were analyzed.Six articles met the inclusion criteria, which contained 12,646 RLN in total. There were 5,535 cases in the RLN monitoring group and 7,111 cases in the conventional exposure group. The results of Meta analysis showed that: the transient injury rate of the RLN in the monitoring group (OR=0.60, 95% CI=0.49-0.73, P0.01) was lower than that in the conventional exposure group, but the permanent injury rate of the RLN in two groups had no statistical difference (OR=0.90, 95 % CI= 0.57-1.40, P0.05). The RLN identification rate also had no statistical difference between the two groups (OR=9.79, 95% CI=0.17-548. 64, P0.05).The transient injury rate of the RLN is lower in the monitoring group than that in conventional exposure group, but the permanent injury rate and the RLN identification rate had no statistical difference between the two groups. The intraoperative nerve monitoring was useful in the prevention of the RLN injury in thyroid surgery.