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Dengue fever is a re-emergent mosquito-borne disease, which prevails in tropical and subtropical regions, mainly in urban and peri-urban areas. Its incidence has increased fourfold since 1970, and dengue fever has become the most prevalent mosquito-borne disease in humans now. In order to study the effect of temperature on the dengue virus transmission, we formulate a dengue virus transmission model with maturation delay for mosquito production and seasonality. The basic reproduction number $\mathbb{R}&#95;0$ of the model is computed, and results suggest that the dengue fever will die out if $\mathbb{R}&#95;0$ < 1, and there exists at least one positive periodic solution and the disease will persist if $\mathbb{R}&#95;0$ > 1. Theoretical results are applied to the outbreak of dengue fever in Guangdong province, China. Simulations reveal that the temperature change causes the periodic oscillations of dengue fever cases, which is good accordance with the reported cases of dengue fever in Guangdong province. Our study contributes to a better understanding of dengue virus transmission dynamics and proves beneficial in preventing and controlling of dengue fever.

Apoptosis-inducing factor (AIF) is a phylogenetically old, bifunctional protein with a pro-apoptotic function and redox activity. AIF regulates apoptosis and also plays a role in the defense against stress depending on its subcellular localization. Embryo implantation is a complicated process, in which an activated blastocyst interacts with a receptive uterus. The expression and regulation of AIF were investigated in this study in the mouse uterus during early pregnancy, pseudopregnancy, delayed implantation, artificial decidualization and under hormonal treatment using in situ hybridization, immunohistochemistry and real-time PCR. During early pregnancy, temporally and spatially regulated patterns of AIF expression were found in the mouse uterus; AIF expression in the luminal epithelium and glandular epithelium is regulated by steroid hormones; AIF mRNA expression in the stroma is influenced by the active blastocyst; and AIF protein was found to be located in the cytoplasm rather than the nucleus through confocal microscope. Our data suggest that AIF might play an important role during mouse embryo implantation and that the role of AIF might be implemented through its physiological activity rather than through its pro-apoptotic function in the mouse uterus during this period.

Parthanatos is a form of cell death, which often occurs in many diseases such as stroke, Parkinson's disease, heart attack, diabetes, and ischemia reperfusion injury. In a cell, the activation of PARP-1 caused by excitotoxicity leads to Parthanatos, which is also known as PARP-1-dependent cell death. There are multiple cell signaling pathways involved in the process of Parthanatos, which have not been fully understood. The main focus of this article is underlying molecular mechanisms of Parthanatos.