Quality assessment of randomized controlled trial abstracts on drug therapy of periodontal disease from the abstracts published in dental Science Citation Indexed journals in the last ten years

Background

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) provide the highest level of evidence and are likely to influence clinical decision-making. This study evaluated the reporting quality of RCT abstracts on drug therapy of periodontal disease and assessed the associated factors.

Material and Methods

The Pubmed database was searched for periodontal RCTs published in Science Citation Indexed (SCI) dental journals from 2010/01/01 to 2019/07/17. Information was extracted from the abstracts according to a modified Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) guideline checklist. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistical analysis and the statistical associations were examined using the linear regression analysis (P <0.05).

Results

This study retrieved 1715 articles and 249 of them were finally included. The average overall CONSORT score was 15.6 ± 3.4, which represented 40.9% (±0.6) of CONSORT criteria filling. The reporting rate of some items (trial design, numbers analyzed, confidence intervals, intention-to-treat analysis or per-protocol analysis, harms, registration) was less than 30%. The adequate reporting rate of some items (participants, randomization, numbers analyzed, confidence intervals, intention-to-treat analysis or per protocol analysis) was no more than 4%. None of the abstracts reported funding. According to the multivariable linear regression results, number of authors (P=0.030), word count (P <0.001), continent (P=0.003), structured format (P <0.001), type of periodontal disease (P <0.001) and international collaboration (P=0.023) have a significant association with reporting quality.

Conclusions

The quality of RCT abstracts on drug therapy of periodontal disease in SCI dental journals remained suboptimal. More efforts should be made to improve RCT abstracts reporting quality.

Key words:Abstracts, RCT, drug therapy, periodontal disease, CONSORT, reporting quality assessment.

Improved Constraints on Sterile Neutrino Mixing from Disappearance Searches in the MINOS, MINOS+, Daya Bay, and Bugey-3 Experiments

Searches for electron antineutrino, muon neutrino, and muon antineutrino disappearance driven by sterile neutrino mixing have been carried out by the Daya Bay and MINOS+ collaborations. This Letter presents the combined results of these searches, along with exclusion results from the Bugey-3 reactor experiment, framed in a minimally extended four-neutrino scenario. Significantly improved constraints on the θ_{μe} mixing angle are derived that constitute the most constraining limits to date over five orders of magnitude in the mass-squared splitting Δm_{41}^{2}, excluding the 90% C.L. sterile-neutrino parameter space allowed by the LSND and MiniBooNE observations at 90% CL_{s} for Δm_{41}^{2}<13  eV^{2}. Furthermore, the LSND and MiniBooNE 99% C.L. allowed regions are excluded at 99% CL_{s} for Δm_{41}^{2}<1.6 eV^{2}.

Constraining the External Capture to the ^{16}O Ground State and the E2 S Factor of the ^{12}C(α,γ)^{16}O Reaction

The ^{12}C(α,γ)^{16}O reaction is one of the most crucial reactions in nuclear astrophysics. The E2 external capture to the ^{16}O ground state (GS) has not been emphasized in previous analyses but may make a significant contribution to the ^{12}C(α,γ)^{16}O cross section depending on the value of the GS asymptotic normalization coefficient (ANC). In the present work, we determine this ANC to be 337±45  fm^{-1/2} through the ^{12}C(^{11}B,^{7}Li)^{16}O reaction using a high-precision magnetic spectrograph. This sheds light on the existing large discrepancy of more than 2 orders of magnitude between the previously reported ANC values. Based on the new ANC, we experimentally constrain the GS external capture and show that through interference with the high energy tail of the 2^{+} subthreshold state, a substantial enhancement in the GS S_{E2}(300) factor can be obtained (70±7  keV b) compared to that of a recent review (45 keV b), resulting in an increase of the total S factor from 140 to 162 keV b, which is now in good agreement with the value obtained by reproducing supernova nucleosynthesis calculations with the solar-system abundances. This work emphasizes that the external capture contribution for the ground state transition cannot be neglected in future analyses of the ^{12}C(α,γ)^{16}O reaction.

Extraction of the ^{235}U and ^{239}Pu Antineutrino Spectra at Daya Bay

This Letter reports the first extraction of individual antineutrino spectra from ^{235}U and ^{239}Pu fission and an improved measurement of the prompt energy spectrum of reactor antineutrinos at Daya Bay. The analysis uses 3.5×10^{6} inverse beta-decay candidates in four near antineutrino detectors in 1958 days. The individual antineutrino spectra of the two dominant isotopes, ^{235}U and ^{239}Pu, are extracted using the evolution of the prompt spectrum as a function of the isotope fission fractions. In the energy window of 4-6 MeV, a 7% (9%) excess of events is observed for the ^{235}U (^{239}Pu) spectrum compared with the normalized Huber-Mueller model prediction. The significance of discrepancy is 4.0σ for ^{235}U spectral shape compared with the Huber-Mueller model prediction. The shape of the measured inverse beta-decay prompt energy spectrum disagrees with the prediction of the Huber-Mueller model at 5.3σ. In the energy range of 4-6 MeV, a maximal local discrepancy of 6.3σ is observed.

56 Spatial analysis of transcriptome changes in porcine endometrium on Day 14 of pregnancy

During the conception cycle, the embryo undergoes a series of developmental processes including cell division, cellular reorganization, and oestrogen secretion before attaching to the uterine epithelium. The uterine endometrium is complex and consists of various layers and cell types [i.e. luminal epithelium (LE), glandular epithelium (GE), blood cells (B), and stromal areas (S)]. The objective of this study was to characterise the complex transcriptome changes in porcine endometrium during the time of conceptus attachment with respect to localization in different endometrial cell types. RNA-sequencing (RNA-Seq) was conducted for LE, GE, B, and S samples isolated from endometrial tissue collected on Day 14 of pregnancy and the oestrous cycle, respectively (each group n=4), by laser capture microdissection (PALM LCM microscope, Zeiss, Jena, Germany). Total RNA was isolated (RNA integrity number&gt;6.5) and used for the preparation of 32 RNA-seq libraries (Ovation SoLo RNA-Seq System, NuGEN Technologies, San Carlos, CA, USA). Multiplexed (barcode-tagged) libraries were run on an Illumina HiSEqn 2500 (Illumina, San Diego, CA, USA). The obtained sequence data were analysed with a RNA-Seq data analysis pipeline on a local Galaxy server installation. The resulting read counts were used for statistical analysis in EdgeR to identify differentially expressed genes (DEG). Furthermore, an RNA-seq dataset for complete Day 14 endometrial tissue samples from a previous study was analysed using the same pipeline. A total of 14297 genes were detectable in complete endometria, and 12000, 11903, 11094, and 11933 genes in LE, GE, B, and S, respectively. Differential expression analysis was performed between the pregnant and the cyclic nonpregnant group for each cell type and the complete tissue. The highest number of DEG was found for LE (1410) when compared with GE, B, and S (800, 1216, and 384, respectively). In total, 3262 DEG were obtained for the complete tissue between pregnant and nonpregnant gilts. The DEG were assigned to Gene Ontology (GO) terms to characterise overrepresented functional categories and pathways specific for the individual endometrial compartments. The GO classification revealed that most DEG in LE were involved in cell communication, such as ‘extracellular exosome’, ‘extracellular vesicle’, ‘homeostatic process’, whereas the ‘response to organic substance’ and ‘regulation of cell migration’ categories were enriched in GE. In blood vessels, categories such as ‘membrane-bounded vesicle’, ‘cell junction’, ‘cell development’, ‘cell adhesion’ and ‘blood vessel morphogenesis’ were found as overrepresented, whereas in stromal regions, most DEG were assigned to ‘cell communication’ and ‘secretion’. These results confirmed the hypothesis that conceptus signals induce specific transcriptomic regulations in the endometrial compartments/cell types related to their functions during recognition of pregnancy adding a new level of spatial gene expression regulation to endometrial transcriptome analysis.

Measurement of the Electron Antineutrino Oscillation with 1958 Days of Operation at Daya Bay

We report a measurement of electron antineutrino oscillation from the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment with nearly 4 million reactor ν[over ¯]_{e} inverse β decay candidates observed over 1958 days of data collection. The installation of a flash analog-to-digital converter readout system and a special calibration campaign using different source enclosures reduce uncertainties in the absolute energy calibration to less than 0.5% for visible energies larger than 2 MeV. The uncertainty in the cosmogenic ^{9}Li and ^{8}He background is reduced from 45% to 30% in the near detectors. A detailed investigation of the spent nuclear fuel history improves its uncertainty from 100% to 30%. Analysis of the relative ν[over ¯]_{e} rates and energy spectra among detectors yields sin^{2}2θ_{13}=0.0856±0.0029 and Δm_{32}^{2}=(2.471_{-0.070}^{+0.068})×10^{-3}  eV^{2} assuming the normal hierarchy, and Δm_{32}^{2}=-(2.575_{-0.070}^{+0.068})×10^{-3}  eV^{2} assuming the inverted hierarchy.

Screening of parathyroid gland by high frequency ultrasound and the relationship between recurrent urinary calculi and primary hyperparathyroidism

OBJECTIVE

To understand the value of high frequency ultrasound in the clinical screening of parathyroid gland, and to summarize the intrinsic relationship between primary hyperparathyroidism and recurrent urinary calculi.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

98 cases of urinary calculi were randomly selected, and the patients were admitted to our hospital from March 2014 to August 2017. A total of 100 healthy subjects were selected as group B in the same period. High frequency color Doppler ultrasonography scan recorded the results.

RESULTS

Among the subjects in group A, 67 (68.37%) showed parathyroid gland, 14 cases (14.29%) had tumor mass in the parathyroid system, 40 cases more than those in group B (40.00%) and 2 cases (2.00%), (p <0.05). There were 10 cases (10.20%) of primary hyperparathyroidism in group A and no cases of primary hyperparathyroidism in group B (p < 0.05). The occurrence of primary hyperparathyroidism was 26.92% (7/26) in the number of cases, with 3 and more cases of urinary calculi, which was higher than that in the first recurrent cases (3/72), (p<0.005).

CONCLUSIONS

One of the key causes of recurrent episodes of urinary calculi is primary hyperparathyroidism, which can be applied to high frequency ultrasonography to develop professional screening of parathyroid gland in cases of urinary calculi.

Immunosuppressive effect of the gut microbiome altered by high-dose tacrolimus in mice

The alterations induced in gut microbiota by tacrolimus may affect immune function and organ transplantation. Mice were treated with high-dose tacrolimus for 14 days. The fecal microbiota were analyzed by pyrosequencing the 16S rRNA genes, and the effect on metabolism was predicted using the sequence data. The subgroups of T cells in the serum, gut-associated lymphoid tissue, and draining lymph nodes were determined by flow cytometry. Tacrolimus treatment significantly altered the relative abundance of Allobaculum, Bacteroides, and Lactobacillus and CD4⁺ CD25^hi FoxP3⁺ regulatory T cells in the colonic mucosa and the circulation. These were significantly increased after either tacrolimus treatment or treatment by fecal microbiota transfer from tacrolimus-treated donors. Further, treatment with low-dose tacrolimus plus fecal microbiota transfer from high-dose tacrolimus-altered mice increased skin allograft survival rate in a skin transplantation model. Thus, high-dose tacrolimus alters the compositions and taxa of the gut microbiota. Administration of these conditioned gut microbiota plus low-dose tacrolimus resulted in regulation of colonic and systemic immune responses and an increased allograft survival rate. This study demonstrated a new strategy for controlling allograft rejection by combining an immunosuppressive agent with gut microbiome transplantation.

Comparative analysis of the bacterial community compositions of the shrimp intestine, surrounding water and sediment

AIMS

To reveal the relationship of the bacterial communities in shrimp intestine and surrounding environments.

METHODS AND RESULTS

We examined bacterial communities in the intestine of pacific white shrimp, Litopenaeus vannamei, the surrounding water and sediment by high-throughput sequencing analysis. Sequences were clustered into operational taxonomic units (OTUs) at 97% similarity levels, which ranged from 4956 to 5976 in each sample. All OTUs were affiliated with at least 64 phyla. The 10 most abundant phyla were Proteobacteria, Cyanobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Chloroflexi, Firmicutes, Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Planctomycetes, Gemmatimonadetes and Verrucomicrobia. The relationship of bacterial communities in the intestine and the surroundings was also investigated. A total of 1395 OTUs shared in the three habitats, accounting for 80, 65 and 77% in the intestine, the surrounding water and sediment respectively. There were 352, 891, 833 unique OTUs in intestine, surrounding water and sediment. Welch's t-test analysis showed that the abundances of some taxa were significantly different between the shrimp intestine and surroundings. Unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic mean analysis revealed that there was a generally similar bacterial community composition in three environments.

CONCLUSIONS

These results showed that the bacterial compositions are mostly the same in shrimp intestine, water and sediment, but with different relative abundances of the bacterial communities.

SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY

This study provided valuable findings on the relationship of the bacterial communities in shrimp intestine, the surrounding water and sediment, which can expand our knowledge of the broad trend on bacterial community in shrimp cultural ecosystems.

[The roles of IL-17 and CXCR4 in chronic allograft nephropathy in rat models]

Objective: To investigate the role and mechanism of IL-17 and CXCR4 in chronic graft nephropathy (CAN) in rat models. Methods: CAN rat models were established using Fisher 344 to Lewis rats. In the control group(n=10), Lewis rats were performed isotransplantation. CAN rat models were established in experimental group(n=10). All the rats were havested 6 weeks after transplantation. Kidneys were examined by pathology to evaluate the injury of the renal allograft. SDF-1/CXCR4, IL-17 and α-SMA expression level in serum and renal graft were detected by immunohistochemical staining and Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays(ELISA). The percent and the absolute amount of CD4(+) cells、CXCR4(+) cells and IL-17(+) cells were detected by flow cytometry. Results: The graft of the experiment group showed obvious pathological features of CAN. The protein expression levels of SDF-1/CXCR4 and IL-17 in the experiment group are significantly higher than in the control group. We could also observe the number of Th17 cells has a significant increase in the experiment group[blood (0.19±0.05)% vs (0.12±0.03)%; kidney (0.52±0.21)% vs (0.17±0.12)%]. The IL-17 level also showed the same differences between the experiment[blood (243.12±17.63) pg/ml, kidney (521.54±21.76) pg/ml]and the control group[blood (35.78±7.3) pg/ml, kidney (77.34±11.1) pg/ml]. Conclusions: The Th17 cells increase in the CAN rats model, maybe the SDF-1/CXCR4 has a chemotaxis to collect Th17 cells to the injured kidney. And its expression of IL-17 may promote the renal cells to transform into fibroblasts.

Nickel(II)-assisted enantiomeric differentiation and quantitation of tadalafil by direct electrospray ionization mass spectrometry

A facile method based on electrospray mass spectrometry was established and validated for the differentiation of enantiomeric tadalafil isomers without using chiral chromatographic separation. The enantiomers were coupled with a chiral selector to form diastereomeric complex ions. Nickel-tadalafil complexes, [Ni^II (tadalafil)(l-Trp)-H]⁺ , produced a characteristic fragment ion at m/z 524 by loss of 1-methyl-1,6-dihydropyrazine-2,5-dione via collision-induced dissociation. The relative abundance of this fragment ion to the precursor contributed to differentiate tadalafil enantiomers, and energy-resolved product-ion spectra were applied to determine the molar composition of tadalafil in the mixture (R,R and S,S) as well. In addition, the other two forms of stereomeric isomers of tadalafil (R,S and S,R) could be also distinguished and analyzed by this method. The method was validated in different types of mass spectrometers (AB quadrupole time-of-flight and Bruker ion trap) and also verified by a chiral high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight. The chiral determination of tadalafil using MS method proved to be rapid (1-min run time for each sample) and to have the same accuracy and precision comparable to chiral liquid chromatography mass spectrometry methods. This method provides an alternative to commonly used chromatographic technique for chiral determination and is particularly useful in rapid screening in enantioselective synthesis and enantiomeric impurity detection in pharmaceutical industry. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Evolution of the Reactor Antineutrino Flux and Spectrum at Daya Bay

The Daya Bay experiment has observed correlations between reactor core fuel evolution and changes in the reactor antineutrino flux and energy spectrum. Four antineutrino detectors in two experimental halls were used to identify 2.2 million inverse beta decays (IBDs) over 1230 days spanning multiple fuel cycles for each of six 2.9 GW_{th} reactor cores at the Daya Bay and Ling Ao nuclear power plants. Using detector data spanning effective ^{239}Pu fission fractions F_{239} from 0.25 to 0.35, Daya Bay measures an average IBD yield σ[over ¯]_{f} of (5.90±0.13)×10^{-43}  cm^{2}/fission and a fuel-dependent variation in the IBD yield, dσ_{f}/dF_{239}, of (-1.86±0.18)×10^{-43}  cm^{2}/fission. This observation rejects the hypothesis of a constant antineutrino flux as a function of the ^{239}Pu fission fraction at 10 standard deviations. The variation in IBD yield is found to be energy dependent, rejecting the hypothesis of a constant antineutrino energy spectrum at 5.1 standard deviations. While measurements of the evolution in the IBD spectrum show general agreement with predictions from recent reactor models, the measured evolution in total IBD yield disagrees with recent predictions at 3.1σ. This discrepancy indicates that an overall deficit in the measured flux with respect to predictions does not result from equal fractional deficits from the primary fission isotopes ^{235}U, ^{239}Pu, ^{238}U, and ^{241}Pu. Based on measured IBD yield variations, yields of (6.17±0.17) and (4.27±0.26)×10^{-43}  cm^{2}/fission have been determined for the two dominant fission parent isotopes ^{235}U and ^{239}Pu. A 7.8% discrepancy between the observed and predicted ^{235}U yields suggests that this isotope may be the primary contributor to the reactor antineutrino anomaly.

[B7-H4-mediated immunoresistance is supressed by PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway inhibitors]

B7-H4 plays an important role in tumor immune evasion. In previous studies we have found that B7-H4 can translocate to the nucleus, and the exposure to PI3K inhibitor Ly294002 affects B7-H4 subcellular distribution. In this study we report the role of PI3K/Akt pathway in the B7-H4 subcellular distribution and the effect of PI3K/Akt inhibitors on B7-H4-mediated immunoresistance. The involvement of PI3K/Akt pathway in B7-H4 subcellular distribution was evident in experiments with wortmannin, while MDM2 inhibitor nutlin-3 and the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin were used to dissect the signaling downstream of Akt. Wortmannin and rapamycin demonstrated similar effects on B7-H4 subcellular distribution. Exposure to any of these inhibitors decreased levels of membrane B7-H4 while at the same time inducing its nuclear accumulation, while exposure to nutlin-3 had no effect on B7-H4 subcellular distribution. In the T cell proliferation assay, both wortmannin and rapamycin effectively inhibited B7-H4 WT/293 cells-mediated T cell proliferation while exerting no effect on Mock/293 cells. PI3K/Akt/mTOR plays a role in B7-H4 subcellular distribution, while MDM2 does not take part in it. Moreover, we show that wortmannin and rapamycin inhibit B7-H4-mediated tumor immunoresistance through regulating B7-H4 subcellular distribution. Taken together, these results suggest that PI3K/Akt/mTOR inhibitors might be used for adjuvant therapy aimed at inhibition of immune evasion.

Limits on Active to Sterile Neutrino Oscillations from Disappearance Searches in the MINOS, Daya Bay, and Bugey-3 Experiments

Searches for a light sterile neutrino have been performed independently by the MINOS and the Daya Bay experiments using the muon (anti)neutrino and electron antineutrino disappearance channels, respectively. In this Letter, results from both experiments are combined with those from the Bugey-3 reactor neutrino experiment to constrain oscillations into light sterile neutrinos. The three experiments are sensitive to complementary regions of parameter space, enabling the combined analysis to probe regions allowed by the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector (LSND) and MiniBooNE experiments in a minimally extended four-neutrino flavor framework. Stringent limits on sin^{2}2θ_{μe} are set over 6 orders of magnitude in the sterile mass-squared splitting Δm_{41}^{2}. The sterile-neutrino mixing phase space allowed by the LSND and MiniBooNE experiments is excluded for Δm_{41}^{2}<0.8  eV^{2} at 95%  CL_{s}.

Improved Search for a Light Sterile Neutrino with the Full Configuration of the Daya Bay Experiment

This Letter reports an improved search for light sterile neutrino mixing in the electron antineutrino disappearance channel with the full configuration of the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment. With an additional 404 days of data collected in eight antineutrino detectors, this search benefits from 3.6 times the statistics available to the previous publication, as well as from improvements in energy calibration and background reduction. A relative comparison of the rate and energy spectrum of reactor antineutrinos in the three experimental halls yields no evidence of sterile neutrino mixing in the 2×10^{-4}≲|Δm_{41}^{2}|≲0.3  eV^{2} mass range. The resulting limits on sin^{2}2θ_{14} are improved by approx imately a factor of 2 over previous results and constitute the most stringent constraints to date in the |Δm_{41}^{2}|≲0.2  eV^{2} region.