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Abstract Background Continuous monocropping obstacles are common in plants, especially medicinal plants, resulting in disease outbreaks and productivity reductions. Foliar disease, mainly caused by Fusarium oxysporum, results in a severe decrease in the yield of Pseudostellaria heterophylla annually. Determining an effective biomethod to alleviate this disease is urgently needed to improve its productivity and quality. Results This study screened thirty-two keystone bacterial genera induced by pathogens in P. heterophylla rhizosphere soil under continuous monocropping conditions. Pseudomonas, Chryseobacterium, and Flavobacterium, referred to as the beneficial microbiota, were significantly attracted by pathogen infection. The P. palleroniana strain B-BH16-1 can directly inhibit the growth and spore formation of seven primary pathogens of P. heterophylla foliar disease by disrupting fusaric acid production via the emission of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). In addition, strain B-BH16-1 enhances the disease resistance of P. heterophylla by obliterating the pathogen and assembling beneficial microbiota. Conclusion Pathogen-induced Pseudomonas reshaped phyllosphere microbial communities via direct antagonism of pathogens and indirect disruption of the pathogen virulence factor biosynthesis to enhance disease suppression and improve yields. These results show that inhibiting pathogen virulence biosynthesis to reshape the plant microbial community using disease-induing probiotics will be an innovative strategy for managing plant disease, especially under continuous monoculture conditions.

Gait is a typical habitual human behavior and manifestation of personality. The unique properties of individual gaits may offer important clues in the assessment of personality. However, assessing personality accurately through quantitative gait analysis remains a daunting challenge. Herein, targeting young individuals, standardized gait data are obtained from 114 subjects with a wearable gait sensor, and the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTl) personality scale is used to assess their corresponding personality types. Artificial intelligence algorithms are used to systematically mine the relationship between gaits and 16 personality types. The work shows that gait parameters can indicate the personality of a subject from the four MBTI dimensions of E‐l, S‐N, T‐F, and J‐P with a concordance rate as high as 95%, 96%, 91%, and 91%, respectively. The overall measurement accuracy for the 16 personality types is 88.16%. Moreover, a personality tracking experiment on all the subjects after one year to assess the stability of their personality is also conducted. This research, which is based on a smart wearable Internet of Things gait sensor, not only establishes a new connection between behavioral analysis and personality assessment but also provides a set of accurate research tools for the quantitative assessment of personality.

AimThis study aimed to systematically compare the efficacy of various immunosuppressive agents in treating pediatric frequently relapsing or steroid-dependent nephrotic syndrome (FRSDNS).MethodsWe conducted systematic searches of PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and the Web of Science up to May 23, 2023. Outcome measures included relapses within 1 year, mean cumulative exposure to corticosteroids, patients with treatment failure at 1 year, relapse-free survival during 1 year, and adverse events. The quality of the included studies was evaluated using the modified Jadad scale, the Methodological Index for Non-Randomized Studies (MINORS), and the modified Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS).ResultsRituximab was found to be the most likely (92.44%) to be associated with the fewest relapses within 1 year and was also most likely (99.99%) to result in the lowest mean cumulative exposure to corticosteroids. Rituximab had the highest likelihood (45.98%) of being associated with the smallest number of patients experiencing treatment failure at 1 year. CsA was most likely (57.93%) to achieve the highest relapse-free survival during 1 year, followed by tacrolimus (26.47%) and rituximab (30.48%). Rituximab showed no association with serious side effects and had comparable adverse effects to ofatumumab and tacrolimus.ConclusionRituximab may be the most favorable immunosuppressive agent for treating pediatric FRSDNS. Nephrologists should consider this drug, along with their clinical experience, patient characteristics, and cost considerations, when choosing a treatment approach.

Traditional approaches to improving basketball players’ shooting skills rely on coaches’ experience in adjusting players’ biomechanical motions. However, such an approach cannot provide specific instructions or facilitate immediate feedback for improvement of the shooting motion. In this article, a method is presented to quantitatively evaluate four key action indicators of shooting basketballs using a machine‐learning model based on Bayesian optimization of a light gradient boosting machine (LightGBM). Important motion data for the model are collected by micro‐inertial measurement units embedded in a wrist motion sensor and an internet of things (IoT) smart basketball. Basketball shooting motion data are collected from 16 subjects and used for model training and data testing, and four important action indicators that influence the shot quality are selected for quantitative assessment. The LightGBM model is then developed for the regression prediction of the four action indicators of shooting. In the results, it is indicated that for an individual player, the highest correlation scores of the four indexes range from 97.6% to 99.3%. The proposed approach for quantitatively assessing shooting indexes can provide objective and data‐based guidance to improve players’ shooting performance. Foreseeably, the prediction model can be embedded into a chip of a wearable device to evaluate the real‐time shot quality quantitatively.

Sinocyclocheilus grahami is an economically valuable and famous fish in Yunnan Province, China. However, given its slow growth (40 g/2 years) and large growth differences among individuals, its growth performance needs to be improved for sustainable future use, in which molecular breeding technology can play an important role. In the current study, we conducted muscle transcriptomic analysis to investigate the growth gaps among individuals and the mechanism underlying growth within 14 fast- and 14 slow-growth S. grahami. In total, 1,647 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were obtained, including 947 up-regulated and 700 down-regulated DEGs in fast-growth group. Most DEGs were significantly enriched in ECM-receptor interaction, starch and sucrose metabolism, glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, pyruvate metabolism, amino acids biosynthesis and metabolism, peroxisome, and PPAR signaling pathway. Some genes related to glycogen degradation, glucose transport, and glycolysis (e.g., adipoq, prkag1, slc2a1, agl, pygm, pgm1, pfkm, gapdh, aldoa, pgk1, pgam2, bpgm, and eno3) were up-regulated, while some genes related to fatty acid degradation and transport (e.g., acox1, acaa1, fabp1b.1, slc27a1, and slc27a2) and amino acid metabolism (e.g., agxt, shmt1, glula, and cth) were down-regulated in the fast-growth group. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis identified col1a1, col1a2, col5a1, col6a2, col10a1, col26a1, bglap, and krt15 as crucial genes for S. grahami growth. Several genes related to bone and muscle growth (e.g., bmp2, bmp3, tgfb1, tgfb2, gdf10, and myog) were also up-regulated in the fast-growth group. These results suggest that fast-growth fish may uptake adequate energy (e.g., glucose, fatty acid, and amino acids) from fodder, with excess energy substances used to synthesize collagen to accelerate bone and muscle growth after normal life activities are maintained. Moreover, energy uptake may be the root cause, while collagen synthesis may be the direct reason for the growth gap between fast- and slow-growth fish. Hence, improving food intake and collagen synthesis may be crucial for accelerating S. grahami growth, and further research is required to fully understand and confirm these associations.

At present, blast furnace (BF) ironmaking is still the main process for producing hot metal in China and around the world. Under the constraint of the global goal of “double carbon”, it is urgent to carry out hydrogen metallurgical innovation for the existing BF ironmaking process with higher carbon emissions. In recent years, BF technology with hydrogen enrichment and pure oxygen has made some progress, effectively reducing carbon emissions of hot metal per tons, but it is still unable to break through the technical bottleneck of emission reduction of more than 30%. In view of this, the authors put forward an ironmaking technology of a reduction smelting furnace (RSF) that is hydrogen-rich and utilizes pure oxygen and carbon recycle (Hy-O-CR), which breaks through the technical defect of traditional BF emission reduction of less than 30% by reshaping the furnace. Firstly, the construction process of the mass and energy balance model for two main unit modules in the new process (RSF with Hy-O-CR and top gas cycle) is introduced, and then the parameter optimization under specific scenario conditions is analyzed, and the influence mechanism of several key variables on the parameters in the furnace is obtained. Finally, the emission of CO2 in the whole process is explored in the case of two typical operating parameters. The results show that after using CCUS technology, the minimum value of direct CO2 emission is 215.93 kg/tHM, which is as high as 84.58% compared with the traditional BF process. Even if the removed CO2 is counted in carbon emissions, the minimum value of direct or indirect carbon emissions is 729.85 kg/tHM, and the proportion of emission reduction can reach 47.87%. The research results show that the reconstruction of Hy-O-CR technology can change the ratio of direct reduction and indirect reduction, which greatly breaks through the emission limit of the traditional BF and provides a new reference for hydrogen metallurgy technology and a basis for further study of the optimization of RSF size.

Tracking and segmenting small targets in remote sensing videos on edge devices carries significant engineering implications. However, many semi-supervised video object segmentation (S-VOS) methods heavily rely on extensive video random-access memory (VRAM) resources, making deployment on edge devices challenging. Our goal is to develop an edge-deployable S-VOS method that can achieve high-precision tracking and segmentation by selecting a bounding box for the target object. First, a tracker is introduced to pinpoint the position of the tracked object in different frames, thereby eliminating the need to save the results of the split as other S-VOS methods do, thus avoiding an increase in VRAM usage. Second, we use two key lightweight components, correlation filters (CFs) and the Mobile Segment Anything Model (MobileSAM), to ensure the inference speed of our model. Third, a mask diffusion module is proposed that improves the accuracy and robustness of segmentation without increasing VRAM usage. We use our self-built dataset containing airplanes and vehicles to evaluate our method. The results show that on the GTX 1080 Ti, our model achieves a J&F score of 66.4% under the condition that the VRAM usage is less than 500 MB, while maintaining a processing speed of 12 frames per second (FPS). The model we propose exhibits good performance in tracking and segmenting small targets on edge devices, providing a solution for fields such as aircraft monitoring and vehicle tracking that require executing S-VOS tasks on edge devices.

Fusarium wilt (FW) is a primary replant disease that affects Pseudostellaria heterophylla (Taizishen) and is caused by Fusarium oxysporum, which occurs widely in China under the continuous monocropping regime. However, the ternary interactions among the soil microbiota, P. heterophylla, and F. oxysporum remain unknown. We investigated the potential interaction relationship by which the pathogen-mediated P. heterophylla regulates the soil and the tuberous root microbiota via high-throughput sequencing. Plant–pathogen interaction assays were conducted to measure the arrival of F. oxysporum and Pseudomonas poae at the tuberous root via qPCR and subsequent seedling disease incidence. A growth assay was used to determine the effect of the tuberous root crude exudate inoculated with the pathogen on P. poae. We observed that pathogen-mediated P. heterophylla altered the diversity and the composition of the microbial communities in its rhizosphere soil and tuberous root. Beneficial microbe P. poae and pathogen F. oxysporum were significantly enriched in rhizosphere soil and within the tuberous root in the FW group with high severity. Correlation analysis showed that, accompanied with FW incidence, P. poae co-occurred with F. oxysporum. The aqueous extract of P. heterophylla tuberous root infected by F. oxysporum substantially promoted the growth of P. poae isolates (H1-3-A7, H2-3-B7, H4-3-C1, and N3-3-C4). These results indicated that the extracts from the tuberous root of P. heterophylla inoculated with F. oxysporum might attract P. poae and promote its growth. Furthermore, the colonization assay found that the gene copies of sucD in the P. poae and F. oxysporum treatment (up to 6.57 × 1010) group was significantly higher than those in the P. poae treatment group (3.29 × 1010), and a pathogen-induced attraction assay found that the relative copies of sucD of P. poae in the F. oxysporum treatment were significantly higher than in the H2O treatment. These results showed that F. oxysporum promoted the colonization of P. poae on the tuberous root via F. oxysporum mediation. In addition, the colonization assay found that the disease severity index in the P. poae and F. oxysporum treatment group was significantly lower than that in the F. oxysporum treatment group, and a pathogen-induced attraction assay found that the disease severity index in the F. oxysporum treatment group was significantly higher than that in the H2O treatment group. Together, these results suggest that pathogen-mediated P. heterophylla promoted and assembled plant-beneficial microbes against plant disease. Therefore, deciphering the beneficial associations between pathogen-mediated P. heterophylla and microbes can provide novel insights into the implementation and design of disease management strategies.

Semen coicis is not only a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), but also a typical food in China, with significant medical and healthcare value. Because semen coicis is rich in starch and oil, it can be easily contaminated with Aspergillus flavus and its aflatoxins (AFs). Preventing and controlling the contamination of semen coicis with Aspergillus flavus and its aflatoxins is vital to ensuring its safety as a drug and as a food. In this study, the endosphere bacteria Pseudomonas palleroniana strain B-BH16-1 produced volatiles that strongly inhibited the mycelial growth and spore formation activity of A. flavus. Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry profiling revealed three volatiles emitted from B-BH16-1, of which 1-undecene was the most abundant. We obtained authentic reference standards for these three volatiles; these significantly reduced mycelial growth and sporulation in Aspergillus, with dimethyl disulfide showing the most robust inhibitory activity. Strain B-BH16-1 was able to completely inhibit the biosynthesis of aflatoxins in semen coicis samples during storage by emitting volatile bioactive components. The microscope revealed severely damaged mycelia and a complete lack of sporulation. This newly identified plant endophyte bacterium was able to strongly inhibit the sporulation and growth of Aspergillus and the synthesis of associated mycotoxins, thus not only providing valuable information regarding an efficient potential strategy for the prevention of A. flavus contamination in TCM and food, but potentially also serving as a reference in the control of toxic fungi.

Global warming significantly affects plateau glaciers and surface runoff, and fish are bound to be severely affected. Additionally, an increasing number of human activities (e.g., free captive animals, aquaculture) have led to vulnerable plateau ecosystems being affected by invasive species. To address the above issues, we collected the currently published fish distribution data, and for the first time constructed a richness and fluvial system distribution map of the Yarlung Zangbo River fish (4 orders, 10 families, and 61 species). Based on fish richness and the fluvial system, the native fish in the Yarlung Zangbo River Basin were divided into three clusters, and the non-native fish were divided into six clusters by using Ward’s minimum variance clustering and non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS). Environmental factors related to native or non-native fish richness were selected by the random forest model from 21 environmental factors. Then, the relationship between fish richness and environmental factors was explained by the generalized linear model (GLM). Our results showed that the native fish distribution pattern was different from the non-native fish distribution, but their high richness areas were overlapped. Furthermore, native fish richness responds differently than non-native fish richness to environmental factors. The results provided eco-solutions for the conservation and management of fish biodiversity and natural resources in the Yarlung Zangbo River.

Hybridization has been successfully achieved using Dianchi golden-line barbel (Sinocyclocheilus grahami) and barbless carp (Cyprinus pellegrini) as parental species. However, little is known about the crossbreeding feasibility of S. grahami with domesticated common carp (Cyprinus carpio) and crucian carp (Carassius auratus). In this study, we constructed reciprocal hybrid lineages using parents of S. grahami (2n = 96) with C. carpio rubrofuscus (2n = 100) and C. auratus (2n = 100). We found that hybrids of S. grahami ♀ × C. carpio rubrofuscus ♂ survived, but with fertilization (41.6%) and hatching rates (68.2%) lower than the reciprocal hybrids (fertilization rate 92.7% and hatching rate 89.5%). Hybrids of S. grahami ♀ × C. auratus ♂ exhibited failed hatching and low fertilization (6.3%) compared with the reciprocal hybrids, which showed high fertilization (88.5%) and hatching rates (88.6%). Growth results show that hybrids of S. grahami ♀ × C. carpio ♂ (total length: 12.2 cm, body weight: 25.4 g), S. grahami ♂ × C. carpio ♀ (total length: 12.1 cm, body weight: 25.0 g), and S. grahami ♂ × C. auratus ♀ (total length: 10.1 cm, body weight: 16.7 g) achieved medium growth rates compared to their parents. Based on this study, the three hybrid lineages show fast growth performance compared to S. grahami and exhibit high commercial and aquacultural application potential.

An adult Sinocyclocheilus maitianheensis, a surface-dwelling golden-line barbel fish, was collected from Maitian river (Kunming City, Yunnan Province, China) for whole-genome sequencing, assembly, and annotation. We obtained a genome assembly of 1.7 Gb with a scaffold N50 of 1.4 Mb and a contig N50 of 24.7 kb. A total of 39,977 protein-coding genes were annotated. Based on a comparative phylogenetic analysis of five Sinocyclocheilus species and other five representative vertebrates with published genome sequences, we found that S. maitianheensis is close to Sinocyclocheilus anophthalmus (a cave-restricted species with similar locality). Moreover, the assembled genomes of S. maitianheensis and other four Sinocyclocheilus counterparts were used for a fourfold degenerative third-codon transversion (4dTv) analysis. The recent whole-genome duplication (WGD) event was therefore estimated to occur about 18.1 million years ago. Our results also revealed a decreased tendency of copy number in many important genes related to immunity and apoptosis in cave-restricted Sinocyclocheilus species. In summary, we report the first genome assembly of S. maitianheensis, which provides a valuable genetic resource for comparative studies on cavefish biology, species protection, and practical aquaculture of this potentially economical fish.

An electrochemical HbA1c sensor with high sensitivity and good specificity is proposed based on the electrochemical immune principle. The reproducibility and conductivity of the electrode are improved by depositing gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) on the surface of the screen-printed electrode (SPE). The HbA1c antibodies are immobilized on the surface of the modified electrode by adsorption to capture the HbA1c in the sample. The hindering effect of HbA1c on the electrode transfer reaction was exploited as the HbA1c detection mechanism. The electrode’s properties were characterized by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and the measurement properties of the electrode were analyzed using differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) and cyclic voltammetry (CV). The experimental results show that the peak current signal of the electrochemical immunosensor produced a linear response to HbA1c in the concentration range of 20–200 μg/mL, a linear relationship coefficient of 0.9812, a detection limit of 15.5 µg/mL, and a sensitivity of 0.0938 µA/µg·mL−1. The sensor delivered satisfactory repeatability, stability, and anti-interference performance. Due to its small size, high sensitivity, and wide linear detection range, it is expected to play a significant role in managing diabetes at home.

Abstract Intermuscular bones (IBs) are widely present in morphologically generalized teleost fishes and are commonly found in the Cyprinidae. Intermuscular bones are small, hard spicules of bone that are formed by ossification in the myosepta between neighboring myomeres. Why fish have IBs, and whether there is any evolutionary pattern to their occurrence, has been poorly understood. However, the presence of IBs does substantially affect the meat quality and commercial values of many cyprinid fishes in aquaculture. In this study, we sampled 592 individuals of cyprinid fishes to systematically investigate the evolution of IBs from a phylogenetic point of view. We found that the total number of IBs in the Cyprinidae ranged from 73 to 169, and we clarified that only two categories of IBs (epineural and epipleural) were present in all examined cyprinids. Most of the IBs were distributed in the posterior region of the fish, which might be an optimal target for selecting fewer IB strains in aquaculture. There was a positive correlation between IBs and the number of vertebrae, thus making it possible to predict the approximate number of IBs by counting the number of vertebrae. Although the IBs displayed some correlation with phylogenetic relationships in some lineages and to ecological factors such as diet (especially carnivore), in an overall view the variations of IBs in cyprinids were extremely diverse. The number and patterns of IBs in these fishes may reflect their phylogenetic history, but have been shaped by multiple environment factors. In this study, we also confirmed that X‐ray photography remains an optimal and reliable method for the study of IBs.

Aircrafts have been an important object of study in the field of multi-scale image object detection due to their important strategic role. However, the multi-scale detection of aircrafts and their key parts from remote sensing images can be a challenge, as images often present complex backgrounds and obscured conditions. Most of today’s multi-scale datasets consist of independent objects and lack mixed annotations of aircrafts and their key parts. In this paper, we contribute a multi-scale aircraft dataset (AP-DATA) consisting of 7000 aircraft images that were taken in complex environments and obscured conditions. Our dataset includes mixed annotations of aircrafts and their key parts. We also present a multi-scale information augmentation framework (MS-IAF) to recognize multi-scale aircrafts and their key parts accurately. First, we propose a new deep convolutional module ResNeSt-D as the backbone, which stacks scattered attention in a multi-path manner and makes the receptive field more suitable for the object. Then, based on the combination of Faster R-CNN with ResNeSt-D, we propose a multi-scale feature fusion module called BFPCAR. BFPCAR overcomes the attention imbalance problem of the non-adjacent layers of the FPN module by reducing the loss of information between different layers and including more semantic features during information fusion. Based on AP-DATA, a dataset with three types of features, the average precision (AP) of MS-IAF reached 0.884, i.e., 2.67% higher than that of the original Faster R-CNN. The APs of these two modules were improved by 2.32% and 1.39%, respectively. The robustness of our proposed model was validated using the open sourced RSOD remote sensing image dataset, and the best accuracy was achieved.

The recognition of abnormal gait behavior is important in the field of motion assessment and disease diagnosis. Currently, abnormal gait behavior is primarily recognized by pressure and inertial data obtained from wearable sensors. However, the data drift and wearing difficulties for patients have impeded the application of these wearable sensors. Here, we propose a contactless abnormal gait behavior recognition method that captures human pose data using a monocular camera. A lightweight OpenPose (OP) model is generated with Depthwise Separable Convolution to recognize joint points and extract their coordinates during walking in real time. For the walking data errors extracted in the 2D plane, a 3D reconstruction is performed on the walking data, and a total of 11 types of abnormal gait features are extracted by the OP model. Finally, the XGBoost algorithm is used for feature screening. The final experimental results show that the Random Forest (RF) algorithm in combination with 3D features delivers the highest precision (92.13%) for abnormal gait behavior recognition. The proposed scheme overcomes the data drift of inertial sensors and sensor wearing challenges in the elderly while reducing the hardware requirements for model deployment. With excellent real-time and contactless capabilities, the scheme is expected to enjoy a wide range of applications in the field of abnormal gait measurement.

A water diffuser is a critical auxiliary equipment for an ice storage system during the external ice melting process. This paper proposes a linear multi-pore water diffuser for an ice storage system with 500 t of refrigeration capacity to enhance the performance of external ice melting. By establishing a three-dimensional two-phase volume of fluid (VOF) model, different structural designs of water diffusers for the ice storage device are numerically examined regarding the degree of turbulence, flow velocity, and pressure drop. The results show that the optimal water diffuser with five rows of trunk pipe and six perforated pores arranged in per row of branch pipe with a 4 mm diameter of perforated pores exhibiting a relatively lower degree of turbulence with a lower pressure drop compared with the other designs in this study. Meanwhile, the influence of the flow velocity on the ice melting process is also investigated by a numerical model of ice melting. It is found that the fed flow velocity from the main pipe inlet exhibits a great impact on the external ice melting process. Compared with the external ice melting process without the water diffuser, the external ice melting process with optimal water diffuser design under flow velocity of 1.0 m s−1 could shorten the overall ice-melting time by 16 h. Additionally, through adjusting the water flow velocity, different output cooling can be realized to provide a fast response speed to the cooling variations in demand of the terminal users with a reduced cost.

A Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau fish, the Kanglang white minnow (Anabarilius grahami), is a typical “3E” (Endangered, Endemic, and Economic) species in China. Its distribution is limited to Fuxian Lake, the nation’s second deepest lake, with a significant local economic value but a drastically declining wild population. This species has been evaluated as VU (Vulnerable) in the China Species Red List. As one of the “Four Famous Fish” in Yunnan province, the artificial breeding has been achieved since 2003. It has not only re-established its wild natural populations by reintroduction of the artificial breeding stocks, but also brought a wide and popular utilization of this species to the local fish farms. A. grahami has become one of the main native aquaculture species in Yunnan province, and the artificial production has been emerging in steady growth each year. To promote the conservation and sustainable utilization of this fish, we initiated its whole genome sequencing project using an Illumina Hiseq2500 platform. The assembled genome size of A. grahami is 1.006 Gb, accounting for 98.63% of the estimated genome size (1.020 Gb), with contig N50 and scaffold N50 values of 26.4 kb and 4.41 Mb, respectively. Approximately about 50.38% of the genome was repetitive. A total of 25,520 protein-coding genes were subsequently predicted. A phylogenetic tree based on 4,580 single-copy genes from A. grahami and 18 other cyprinids revealed three well-supported subclades within the Cyprinidae. This is the first inter-subfamily relationship of cyprinids at genome level, providing a simple yet useful framework for understanding the traditional but popular subfamily classification systems. Interestingly, a further population demography of A. grahami uncovered a historical relationship between this fish and Fuxian Lake, suggesting that range expansion or shrinkage of the habitat has had a remarkable impact on the population size of endemic plateau fishes. Additionally, a total of 33,836 simple sequence repeats (SSR) markers were identified, and 11 loci were evaluated for a preliminary genetic diversity analysis in this study, thus providing another useful genetic resource for studying this “3E” species.

The notorious parasite Ichthyophthirius multifiliis (Ich) has been recorded worldwide in fish species and causes white spot disease, posing major threats and resulting in severe losses to international fish production. Extensively effective strategies for treating Ich are not available yet, and genetic mechanisms of hosts in response to the parasite are still largely unknown. In this study, we selected Kanglang white minnow (KWM, Anabarilius grahami) to examine its liver transcriptional changes after Ich infection, as white spot disease is one bottleneck problem in exploring this economically important species. We divided the experimental fishes into three groups (control, early-infected, and late-infected) to examine differentially expressed genes (DEGs). A total of 831 DEGs were identified and classified into 128 significantly enriched GO (Gene Ontology) terms and 71 significantly enriched KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) pathways. Most of these terms or pathways were functionally enriched in immunity, inflammatory response, and apoptosis, such as nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-like (NOD-like) receptor signaling, tumor necrosis factor (TNF) signaling, interleukin-17 (IL-17) signaling, and apoptosis pathways. We also identified 178 putative antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) and AMP precursors based on our previously reported genome assembly of KWM, and revealed that the expressional patterns varied according to different types. In summary, our work reported the first comprehensive transcriptional changes in KWM in response to the exogenous infection of Ich, which would lay a solid foundation for in-depth studies on disease defense or resistant strains selection in this valuable fish.

Aim: This study aimed to systematically compare the efficacy of various immunosuppressive agents in treating pediatric frequently relapsing or steroiddependent nephrotic syndrome (FRSDNS). Methods: We conducted systematic searches of PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and the Web of Science up to May 23, 2023. Outcome measures included relapses within 1 year, mean cumulative exposure to corticosteroids, patients with treatment failure at 1 year, relapse-free survival during 1 year, and adverse events. The quality of the included studies was evaluated using the modified Jadad scale, the Methodological Index for Non-Randomized Studies (MINORS), and the modified Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS). Results: Rituximab was found to be the most likely (92.44%) to be associated with the fewest relapses within 1 year and was also most likely (99.99%) to result in the lowest mean cumulative exposure to corticosteroids. Rituximab had the highest likelihood (45.98%) of being associated with the smallest number of patients experiencing treatment failure at 1 year. CsA was most likely (57.93%) to achieve the highest relapse-free survival during 1 year, followed by tacrolimus (26.47%) and rituximab (30.48%). Rituximab showed no association with serious side effects and had comparable adverse effects to ofatumumab and tacrolimus. Conclusion: Rituximab may be the most favorable immunosuppressive agent for treating pediatric FRSDNS. Nephrologists should consider this drug, along with their clinical experience, patient characteristics, and cost considerations, when choosing a treatment approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]