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Gut microbiota are associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in preterm infants; however, the precise causal relationship remains unclear. In this study, we conducted a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to comprehensively study the relationship between gut microbiota and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in preterm infants and identify specific causal bacteria that may be associated with the occurrence and development of adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in preterm infants. The genome-wide association analysis (GWAS) of the MiBioGen biogroup was used as the exposure data. The GWAS of six common adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in premature infants from the FinnGen consortium R9 was used as the outcome data. Genetic variations, namely, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) below the locus-wide significance level (1 × 10−5) and genome-wide statistical significance threshold (5 × 10−8) were selected as instrumental variables (IVs). MR studies use inverse variance weighting (IVW) as the main method. To supplement this, we also applied three additional MR methods: MR-Egger, weighted median, and weighted mode. In addition, the Cochrane’s Q test, MR-Egger intercept test, Mendelian randomization pleiotropy residual sum and outlier (MR-PRESSO), and leave-one-out methods were used for sensitivity analysis. Our study shows a causal relationship between specific gut microbiota and neurodevelopmental outcomes in preterm infants. These findings provide new insights into the mechanism by which gut microbiota may mediate adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in preterm infants.

In this paper, icaritin film was prepared by low-energy beam electron beam deposition (EBD). The material test showed that the structure and composition of icaritin were not changed after electron beam deposition. Then, the film was sliced and immersed in simulated body fluids, it can be seen that the film was released quickly in the first 7 days. With the extension of soaking time, the release rate gradually slowed down, and the release amount exceeded 90% in about 20 days. In vitro cytotoxicity test showed that the relative cell viability rate of the film was still 92.32±1.30% (p

OLIG1 is an oligodendrocyte (OL) transcription factor, which can contribute to the proliferation and differentiation of OLs, and the maturation of myelin. The aim of this study was to clarify the role of OLIG1 in neonatal Sprague Dawley rats with periventricular leukomalacia (PVL), induced by hypoxia-ischemia (HI). Newborn rats in the HI group were subjected to ligation of the right carotid artery, followed by 8% oxygen delivery for 2 h, while rats in the normoxia group were only subjected to isolation of the right carotid artery, without exposure to hypoxia. Samples of brain tissue from rats in both groups were collected at 1, 3, 7, 14 and 21 days. In the HI group, observation by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealed OLs with a damaged nuclear membrane, cellular atrophy, deformation and necrosis, and cells in myelin with a high number of small vacuoles. A double-label immunofluorescence assay revealed the translocation of OLIG1 from the cytoplasm to the nucleus, while western blot and reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction assays showed that there is a significant decrease, followed by an increase, in the gene and protein expression levels of OLIG1 and myelin basic protein (MBP). Despite the increase at the late stages of HI, the final levels of these proteins remained lower than the corresponding levels in the normoxia group. In conclusion, the decreased protein expression of OLIG1 following HI plays an important role in inhibiting the development and maturation of OLs and myelin. Although OLIG1 may, via its nuclear translocation, promote the growth and development of myelin to a certain extent, this factor fails to fully repair injured myelin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]