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Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) are the third most important nutrient in human milk and are the gold standard for infant nutrition. Due to the lack of an enzyme system capable of utilizing HMOs in the infant intestine, HMOs cannot be directly utilized. Instead, they function as natural prebiotics, participating in the establishment of the intestinal microbiota as a “bifidus factor.” A crucial colonizer of the early intestine is Bifidobacterium longum (B. longum), particularly its subspecies B. longum subsp. infantis, which is the most active consumer of HMOs. However, due to the structural diversity of HMOs and the specificity of B. longum strains, studies on their synergy are limited. An in-depth investigation into the mechanisms of HMO utilization by B. longum is essential for applying both as synbiotics to promote early intestinal development in infants. This review describes the colonization advantages of B. longum in the infant intestinal tract and its metabolic strategies for HMOs. It also summarizes recent studies on the effect and mechanism of B. longum and HMOs in infant intestinal development directly or indirectly through the action of metabolites. In conclusion, further structural analysis of HMOs and a deeper understanding of the interactions between B. longum and HMOs, as well as clinical trials, are necessary to lay the foundation for future practical applications as synbiotics.

Abstract Objectives To reveal the relationship between the fibulin‐2 protein and immune dysfunction after bone trauma. Methods Individuals who were admitted to the study were divided into a bone trauma group, a recovered from bone trauma group and a volunteer without bone trauma group based on the reason for admission. Fibulin‐2 levels in the three groups were compared. Fibulin‐2‐knockout (fibulin‐2−/−) mice and wild‐type (WT) mice were used to detect susceptibility to infection. Hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining and immunohistochemical staining were employed to observe pathological changes in each organ from fibulin‐2−/− mice and WT mice. Results In total, 132 patients were enrolled in this study. The fibulin‐2 level in the bone trauma group was lower than that in the recovered bone trauma group (3.39 ± 1.41 vs. 4.30 ± 1.38 ng/mL, t = 2.948, p

Digital finance plays a crucial role in enhancing financial inclusion and decreasing income inequality within developing countries. Given the digital and financial attributes that characterize digital finance, digital financial literacy (DFL) is a critical factor that influences the extent to which this function can be exploited. There is relatively little empirical evidence linking DFL to rural income inequality. Based on the 2017 and 2019 China Household Finance Survey data and two-way fixed effect panel model, this study focuses on rural China and examines the effect of DFL on income inequality. Meanwhile, this study also explores the mechanism of this effect from the perspectives of financial asset allocation and entrepreneurship. The empirical results show that (1) increasing DFL within rural households contributes to decreasing income inequality; (2) DFL can decrease income inequality by enriching the variety of household financial assets and enlarging the proportion of risky financial assets in rural households; and (3) improving DFL can ameliorate rural income inequality by increasing the probability of entrepreneurship. The study’s findings put forward fresh empirical evidence for understanding the relationship and mechanism that exist between DFL and income inequality, and more significantly, provide new suggestions for designing and enhancing financial policies that aim to decrease income inequality in developing countries.

BackgroundClinical studies have demonstrated that microbes play a crucial role in human health and disease. The identification of microbe-disease interactions can provide insights into the pathogenesis and promote the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. Although a large number of computational methods are designed to screen novel microbe-disease associations, the accurate and efficient methods are still lacking due to data inconsistence, underutilization of prior information, and model performance.MethodsIn this study, we proposed an improved deep learning-based framework, named GIMMDA, to identify latent microbe-disease associations, which is based on graph autoencoder and inductive matrix completion. By co-training the information from microbe and disease space, the new representations of microbes and diseases are used to reconstruct microbe-disease association in the end-to-end framework. In particular, a similarity fusion strategy is conducted to improve prediction performance.ResultsThe experimental results show that the performance of GIMMDA is competitive with that of existing state-of-the-art methods on 3 datasets (i.e., HMDAD, Disbiome, and multiMDA). In particular, it performs best with the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.9735, 0.9156, 0.9396 on abovementioned 3 datasets, respectively. And the result also confirms that different similarity fusions can improve the prediction performance. Furthermore, case studies on two diseases, i.e., asthma and obesity, validate the effectiveness and reliability of our proposed model.ConclusionThe proposed GIMMDA model show a strong capability in predicting microbe-disease associations. We expect that GPUDMDA will help identify potential microbe-related diseases in the future.

Acute lung injury (ALI) is a common respiratory disease in clinics, which is characterized by alveolar-capillary membrane loss, plasma protein leakage, pulmonary edema, massive neutrophil infiltration, and the release of proinflammatory cytokines and mediators. Rhodiola rosea L. an adaptogenic plant rich in phenylethanoloids, phenylpropanoids, monoterpenes, has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects. We hope to verify the relieving effect of total glycosides of Rhodiola rosea L. (RTG) on ALI in mice and clarify its mechanism through this study. In this study, we identified the effect and mechanism of RTG on ALI through LPS-induced ALI mice. After RTG treatment, the pathological structure of lung tissue in ALI mice induced by LPS was significantly improved, and the infiltration of inflammatory cells was reduced. In addition, RTG reduced the production of IL-6, IL-1β, and TNF-α in the serum of ALI mice and reduced the content or activity of MPO, T-SOD, GSH, and MDA in lung tissue. RNAseq analysis showed that RTG ameliorated LPS-induced ALI through anti-inflammatory, reduced immune response, and anti-apoptotic activities. The western blotting analysis confirmed that RTG could down-regulate the expression levels of TLR4, MyD88, NF-κB p65, and p-IκBα/IκBα. These results suggest that RTG can attenuate LPS-induced ALI through antioxidants and inhibition of the TLR4/NF-κB pathway.

Abstract We hypothesized that postoperative malrotation of humeral shaft fractures can alter the bio-mechanical environment of the shoulder; thus, rotator cuff and cartilage degeneration could be induced. Therefore, we designed an animal experiment to evaluate the impact of malrotation deformities after minimally invasive surgery for humeral fractures on the rotator cuff and cartilage, which has rarely been described in previous studies. Twenty-four New Zealand white rabbits were randomly divided into the sham control group (A), negative control group (B) and malrotated group (C). A sham operation with surgical exposure alone was performed in group A. Humeral shaft osteotomy was performed in Group B and C. In Group B, the fractures were fixed in situ with plate -screw system. While in Group C, iatrogenic rotational deformity was created after the proximal end of the fracture being internally rotated by 20 degrees and then subsequently fixed. The animals with bone healing were sacrificed for pathological and biochemical examination. In group C, the modified Mankin scale for cartilage pathology evaluation and the modified Movin scale for tendon both showed highest score among groups with statistical significance (P

Abstract Background Percutaneous vertebroplasty is the most common treatment for osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture. However, the morbidity of vertebroplasty-related complications, such as cement leakage, remains high. We tested a new technique of unilateral pulsed jet lavage and investigated its effect on the intravertebral pressure and bone cement distribution. Methods Thirty lumbar vertebrae (L1-L5) from six cadaver spines were randomly allocated into two groups (with and without irrigation). Prior to vertebroplasty, pulsed jet lavage was performed through one side of the pedicle by using a novel cannula with two concentric conduits to remove the fat and bone marrow of the vertebral bodies in the group with irrigation. The control group was not irrigated. Then, standardized vertebroplasty was performed in the vertebral bodies in both groups. Changes in the intravertebral pressure during injection were recorded. Computed tomography (CT) was performed to observe the cement distribution and extravasations, and the cement mass volume (CMV) was calculated. Results During cement injection, the average maximum intravertebral pressure of the unirrigated group was higher than that of the irrigated group (4.92 kPa versus 2.22 kPa, P < 0.05). CT scans showed a more homogeneous cement distribution with less CMV (3832 mm3 vs. 4344 mm3, P < 0.05) and less leakage rate (6.7% vs. 46.7%, P < 0.05) in the irrigated group than in the control group. Conclusions Unilateral pulsed jet lavage can reduce intravertebral pressure and lower the incidence of cement leakage during vertebroplasty. An enhanced bone cement distribution can also be achieved through this lavage system.

Abstract Background The aim of this study was to evaluate whether serum cystatin C could serve as a predictor of multivessel coronary artery disease identified by coronary angiography in type 2 diabetes patients with normal renal function and to suggest the cutoff point of serum cystatin C for predicting multivessel disease. Methods Serum cystatin C concentrations were measured by using particle-enhanced immunonephelometric assays before coronary angiography in 135 consecutive type 2 diabetes patients and 179 nondiabetic patients with normal renal function. Routine anthropometric and serologic data were collected. The severity of multivessel disease was assessed with the Gensini score after coronary angiography. The associations of serum cystatin C with the Gensini score were investigated, and the independent risk factors associated with multivessel disease were assessed. Results Serum cystatin C and the Gensini score were significantly elevated in diabetes patients. Cystatin C had a positive correlation with Gensini score. A multiple logistic regression analysis demonstrated that cystatin C was independently associated with the presence of multivessel disease (the OR score is 2.21, P = 0.003). Based on the ROC curve, a cystatin C level of 0.865 mg/L showed 67.7% sensitivity and 76.3% specificity with an AUC of 0.748 in diabetes patients for detecting multivessel disease. Conclusion Serum cystatin C is significantly correlated with the presence of multivessel disease, suggesting that cystatin C might be utilized as a screening tool for predicting multivessel disease in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients with normal renal function.

Objective To measure the inductive effect of kartogenin on matrix metalloproteinase-2 levels during the differentiation of human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) into chondrocytes in vitro . Methods In vitro cultured bone marrow hMSCs were grown to the logarithmic phase and then divided into three groups: control group (0 µM kartogenin), 1 µM kartogenin group and 10 µM kartogenin group. After 72 h of culture, cell proliferation and differentiation were observed microscopically. Matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) in the cell supernatant and type II collagen levels in the cells were detected by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay and immunofluorescence staining, respectively. Results Kartogenin induced the proliferation and differentiation of hMSCs. With the increase of kartogenin concentration, the level of type II collagen was increased, while the level of MMP-2 decreased. Conclusion These findings indicate that kartogenin can induce hMSCs to differentiate into chondrocytes, and with the increase of kartogenin concentration, degeneration of the cartilage extracellular matrix may be inhibited.

Human milk is the most important source of nutrition in early infancy, which can meet all the nutritional needs in the first 6 months after birth. It contains many bioactive substances that can regulate the intestinal flora, promote the development of the immune system, and enhance the intestinal barrier. Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) are one of the active substances in human milk. They cannot be directly digested and absorbed by infants, but can be used as a prebiotic to stimulate the establishment and evolution of the gut microbiota. Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis is a dominant microorganism in the gut of breastfed infants, which has almost all gene clusters required for metabolizing the major HMOs, and its interaction with HMOs plays a key role in the early intestinal health of infants. This review summarizes the composition and structure of HMOs, describes the utilization of HMOs by B. longum subsp. infantis and summarizes the beneficial effects B. longum subsp. infantis exerts in infants by metabolizing HMOs, which will lay the foundation for exploring the interaction mechanism between HMOs and the gut microbiota, as well as its role in infant intestinal development and maturation.