Simplified α2-macroglobulin as a TNF-α inhibitor for inflammation alleviation in osteoarthritis and myocardial infarction therapy

Tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) is a leading proinflammatory cytokine as the master regulator of inflammation in chronic inflammation diseases. Although TNF-α antagonists such as small molecules and peptides are in development, comparable effectiveness in TNF-α neutralization is hardly achieved only with TNF-α capture. In this study, simplified α2-macroglobulin (SM) as a novel TNF-α inhibitor was fabricated to relieve inflammation response by TNF-α capture and internalization with lysosomal degradation. SM was prepared by conjugating a TNF-α-targeting peptide with a receptor binding domain (RBD) derived from α2-macroglobulin through a synthetic biology strategy. SM exhibited effective capture and bioactivity inhibition of TNF-α. Improved endocytosis of TNF-α into lysosomes was observed with SM in macrophages. Even challenged with LPS/IFNγ, the macrophages showed relieved inflammation response with SM treatment. When administrated in chronic inflammation injury in vivo, SM achieved comparable therapeutic efficacy with Infliximab, showing ameliorated cartilage degeneration with relieved inflammation in osteoarthritis (OA) and preserved cardiac function with mitigated myocardium injury in myocardial infarction (MI). These results suggest that SM functioning in TNF-α capture-internalization mechanism might be promising therapeutic alternatives of TNF-α antibodies.

PyMAF-X: Towards Well-Aligned Full-Body Model Regression From Monocular Images

We present PyMAF-X, a regression-based approach to recovering a parametric full-body model from a single image. This task is very challenging since minor parametric deviation may lead to noticeable misalignment between the estimated mesh and the input image. Moreover, when integrating part-specific estimations into the full-body model, existing solutions tend to either degrade the alignment or produce unnatural wrist poses. To address these issues, we propose a Pyramidal Mesh Alignment Feedback (PyMAF) loop in our regression network for well-aligned human mesh recovery and extend it as PyMAF-X for the recovery of expressive full-body models. The core idea of PyMAF is to leverage a feature pyramid and rectify the predicted parameters explicitly based on the mesh-image alignment status. Specifically, given the currently predicted parameters, mesh-aligned evidence will be extracted from finer-resolution features accordingly and fed back for parameter rectification. To enhance the alignment perception, an auxiliary dense supervision is employed to provide mesh-image correspondence guidance while spatial alignment attention is introduced to enable the awareness of the global contexts for our network. When extending PyMAF for full-body mesh recovery, an adaptive integration strategy is proposed in PyMAF-X to produce natural wrist poses while maintaining the well-aligned performance of the part-specific estimations. The efficacy of our approach is validated on several benchmark datasets for body, hand, face, and full-body mesh recovery, where PyMAF and PyMAF-X effectively improve the mesh-image alignment and achieve new The project page with code and video results can be found at https://www.liuyebin.com/pymaf-x.

Efficient imaging using spiral acquisitions on a portable 50-mT MR head scanner

Ultralow-field (ULF) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can suffer from inferior image quality because of low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). As an efficient way to cover the k-space, the spiral acquisition technique has shown great potential in improving imaging SNR efficiency at ULF. The current study aimed to address the problems of noise and blurring cancelation in the ULF case with spiral trajectory, and we proposed a spiral-out sequence for brain imaging using a portable 50-mT MRI system. The proposed sequence consisted of three modules: noise calibration, field map acquisition, and imaging. In the calibration step, transfer coefficients were obtained between signals from primary and noise-pick-up coils to perform electromagnetic interference (EMI) cancelation. Embedded field map acquisition was performed to correct accumulated phase error due to main field inhomogeneity. Considering imaging SNR, a lower bandwidth for data sampling was adopted in the sequence design because the 50-mT scanner is in a low SNR regime. Image reconstruction proceeded with sampled data by leveraging system imperfections, such as gradient delays and concomitant fields. The proposed method can provide images with higher SNR efficiency compared with its Cartesian counterparts. An improvement in temporal SNR of approximately 23%-44% was measured via phantom and in vivo experiments. Distortion-free images with a noise suppression rate of nearly 80% were obtained by the proposed technique. A comparison was also made with a state-of-the-art EMI cancelation algorithm used in the ULF-MRI system. SNR efficiency-enhanced spiral acquisitions were investigated for ULF-MR scanners and future studies could focus on various image contrasts based on our proposed approach to widen ULF applications.

The effect of family boundary flexibility on employees' work engagement: a study based on person-environment fit theory perspective

Under the impact of the era of big data and public emergency, the blurring of family-work boundaries and the increasing burden of family responsibilities will pose a great challenge to employee resilience and family work balance, which in turn will affect employees' work engagement. Therefore, based on the person-environment fit theory, this study aims to explore the potential mechanism and boundary conditions of employee family boundary flexibility fit on work engagement. This study conducted a random sampling of enterprise employees in China. A sample of 433 participants completed a questionnaire to provide data. We conduct hierarchical regression and Bootstrap analysis to verify the hypothesis model. The study found that employees' work engagement is significantly improved when their family boundary flexibility is matched. Family-work enrichment plays a role in mediating the impact of employees' family boundary flexibility on work engagement. The relationship between family-work enrichment and work engagement is moderated by family support. Therefore, enterprises should respect and value each employee's family boundary flexibility, establish family-friendly policies, and consider personal family boundary flexibility in employees' career development planning. This will promote the enhancement of employee resilience, enable better engagement in work, improve work efficiency, and enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises.

The lipid Gb3 promotes germinal center B cell responses and anti-viral immunity

Influenza viruses escape immunity due to rapid antigenic evolution, which requires vaccination strategies that allow for broadly protective antibody responses. Here, we demonstrate that the lipid globotriaosylceramide (Gb3) expressed on germinal center (GC) B cells is essential for the production of high-affinity antibodies. Mechanistically, Gb3 binds and disengages CD19 from its chaperone CD81 for subsequent translocation to the B cell receptor (BCR) complex to trigger signaling. Abundance of Gb3 amplifies the PI3-kinase/Akt/Foxo1 pathway to drive affinity maturation. Moreover, this lipid regulates MHC-II expression to increase diversity of T follicular helper (Tfh) and GC B cells reactive with subdominant epitopes. In influenza infection, Gb3 promotes broadly reactive antibody responses and cross-protection. Thus, we show that Gb3 determines affinity as well as breadth in B cell immunity and propose this lipid as novel vaccine adjuvant against viral infection.

One Sentence Summary

Gb3 abundance on GC B cells selects antibodies with high affinity and broad epitope reactivities, which are cross-protective against heterologous influenza infection.

Assembly of Alloyed PdM (Ag, Cu, and Sn) Nanosheets and Their Electrocatalytic Oxidation of Ethanol and Methanol

Direct alcohol fuel cells are popular due to their high energy density, abundant sources, and ease of transportation and storage. Palladium-based nanosheet self-assembled materials have emerged as an effective catalyst for alcohol oxidation reactions. In this work, nanosheets were synthesized with the same feeding ratio assembly of alloyed PdM (M = Ag, Cu, and Sn). The introduction of the second element was able to enhance the catalytic response of the catalysts to alcohol electrooxidation. Among them, the PdCu alloy exhibited the best performance in terms of catalytic activity, toxicity resistance, and stability to ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR) and methanol oxidation reaction (MOR). The catalytic current densities for EOR can reach 2226, 2518, and 1598 mA mg-1 for PdAg, PdCu, and PdSn nanosheet assemblies, respectively. These are mainly attributed to better electronic effects, altered atomic distances within the cell for the d-band centers of Pd, and a larger electrochemical active surface area (ECSA). The optimized d-band center is beneficial to promote the catalytic performance of EOR and MOR. Experimental data also demonstrated that higher electrocatalytic temperature, higher pH, and higher alcohol concentration can accelerate the rate of alcohol electrooxidation. These results have the potential to be extended to Pd-M (M = other metals) nanosheets and help for a wider range of catalytic applications.

Selection of Reference Genes in Evodia rutaecarpa var. officinalis and Expression Patterns of Genes Involved in Its Limonin Biosynthesis

E. rutaecarpa var. officinalis is a traditional Chinese medicinal plant known for its therapeutic effects, which encompass the promotion of digestion, the dispelling of cold, the alleviation of pain, and the exhibition of anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties. The principal active component of this plant, limonin, is a potent triterpene compound with notable pharmacological activities. Despite its significance, the complete biosynthesis pathway of limonin in E. rutaecarpa var. officinalis remains incompletely understood, and the underlying molecular mechanisms remain unexplored. The main purpose of this study was to screen the reference genes suitable for expression analysis in E. rutaecarpa var. officinalis, calculate the expression patterns of the genes in the limonin biosynthesis pathway, and identify the relevant enzyme genes related to limonin biosynthesis. The reference genes play a pivotal role in establishing reliable reference standards for normalizing the gene expression data, thereby ensuring precision and credibility in the biological research outcomes. In order to identify the optimal reference genes and gene expression patterns across the diverse tissues (e.g., roots, stems, leaves, and flower buds) and developmental stages (i.e., 17 July, 24 August, 1 September, and 24 October) of E. rutaecarpa var. officinalis, LC-MS was used to analyze the limonin contents in distinct tissue samples and developmental stages, and qRT-PCR technology was employed to investigate the expression patterns of the ten reference genes and eighteen genes involved in limonin biosynthesis. Utilizing a comprehensive analysis that integrated three software tools (GeNorm ver. 3.5, NormFinder ver. 0.953 and BestKeeper ver. 1.0) and Delta Ct method alongside the RefFinder website, the best reference genes were selected. Through the research, we determined that Act1 and UBQ served as the preferred reference genes for normalizing gene expression during various fruit developmental stages, while Act1 and His3 were optimal for different tissues. Using Act1 and UBQ as the reference genes, and based on the different fruit developmental stages, qRT-PCR analysis was performed on the pathway genes selected from the "full-length transcriptome + expression profile + metabolome" data in the limonin biosynthesis pathway of E. rutaecarpa var. officinalis. The findings indicated that there were consistent expression patterns of HMGCR, SQE, and CYP450 with fluctuations in the limonin contents, suggesting their potential involvement in the limonin biosynthesis of E. rutaecarpa var. officinalis. This study lays the foundation for further research on the metabolic pathway of limonin in E. rutaecarpa var. officinalis and provides reliable reference genes for other researchers to use for conducting expression analyses.

Moderate Intensity of Treadmill Exercise Rescues TBI-Induced Ferroptosis, Neurodegeneration, and Cognitive Impairments via Suppressing STING Pathway

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a universal leading cause of long-term neurological disability and causes a huge burden to an ever-growing population. Moderate intensity of treadmill exercise has been recognized as an efficient intervention to combat TBI-induced motor and cognitive disorders, yet the underlying mechanism is still unclear. Ferroptosis is known to be highly implicated in TBI pathophysiology, and the anti-ferroptosis effects of treadmill exercise have been reported in other neurological diseases except for TBI. In addition to cytokine induction, recent evidence has demonstrated the involvement of the stimulator of interferon genes (STING) pathway in ferroptosis. Therefore, we examined the possibility that treadmill exercise might inhibit TBI-induced ferroptosis via STING pathway. In this study, we first found that a series of ferroptosis-related characteristics, including abnormal iron homeostasis, decreased glutathione peroxidase 4 (Gpx4), and increased lipid peroxidation, were detected at 44 days post TBI, substantiating the involvement of ferroptosis at the chronic stage following TBI. Furthermore, treadmill exercise potently decreased the aforementioned ferroptosis-related changes, suggesting the anti-ferroptosis role of treadmill exercise following TBI. In addition to alleviating neurodegeneration, treadmill exercise effectively reduced anxiety, enhanced spatial memory recovery, and improved social novelty post TBI. Interestingly, STING knockdown also obtained the similar anti-ferroptosis effects after TBI. More importantly, overexpression of STING largely reversed the ferroptosis inactivation caused by treadmill exercise following TBI. To conclude, moderate-intensity treadmill exercise rescues TBI-induced ferroptosis and cognitive deficits at least in part via STING pathway, broadening our understanding of neuroprotective effects induced by treadmill exercise against TBI.

[The harvestion and application experience of free multi-lobed anterior thigh flap]

Objective: To introduce the technique and clinical application of free lobed anteromedial thigh perforator pedicle flap. Methods: From September 2015 to September 2021, 72 patients with perforating buccal and oral cancer defects were treated at the Oncology Plastic Surgery Department of Hunan Cancer Hospital. There were 61 males and 11 females, with an average age of 36.7 years (31-56 years). According to Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) TNM staging, there were 20 cases of T3N1M0, 13 cases of T3N2M0, 24 cases of T4N0M0, and 15 cases of T4N1M0. All defects were planned to be repaired with free lobed anteromedial perforator flaps. When there was only one set of vascular pedicle, the perforating vascular pedicle artery was anastomosed with the superior thyroid artery, and the accompanying vein was anastomosed with the superior thyroid vein by end-to-end. Results: The areas of soft tissue defects after radical resection of oral and buccal cancers in 72 patients were between 5.0 cm × 4.0 cm and 11.0 cm×7.0 cm; the areas of the first anterior femoral skin islands were between 5.0 cm × 4.0 cm and 13.0 cm×7.0 cm; the areas of the second anterior femoral skin islands were between 5.0 cm × 3.0 cm and 10.0 cm × 7.0 cm; and all flap donor sites were directly closed. In 35 cases, the vascular pedicle was accompanied by a lateral femoral muscle flap for filling the gap defect at the base of the mouth. The average length of the vascular pedicles of the flaps was 7.2 cm (range: 6.8-8.2 cm). The average diameter of the vascular pedicle arteries was 1.6 mm (range: 1.4-2.2 mm). The blood flow reconstruction of flap was completed by anastomosing one accompanying vein. The average diameter of the accompanying veins was 2.1 mm (range: 1.6-2.8 mm). Postoperative hematoma occurred in 3 patients, with one having vascular crisis. After emergency exploration, 2 of them were successfully saved, and the other one had complete necrosis of skin flap, which was repaired by pedicled pectoralis major skin flap transplantation. With following up of 12-38 months, the appearances of the flaps were satisfactory without significant swelling. The mouth opening and language function were satisfactory in all cases, and only linear scars were left in the donor sites, with no significant impact on thigh functions. Five patients with local recurrence of tumor were treated with second radical resection and repair with pedicled pectoralis major myocutaneous flap. Six patients developed cervical lymph node metastasis (4 on the same side and 2 on the opposite side) and underwent neck dissection again. Conclusion: The anatomical basis of the branches of the anteromedial femoral perforating branches in the anterolateral region of the thigh can be helpful to prepare the anterolateral femoral lobed flap, which is suitable for repairing the perforating defects after the radical operation of oral and buccal cancers.

Collateral lethality between HDAC1 and HDAC2 exploits cancer-specific NuRD complex vulnerabilities

Transcriptional co-regulators have been widely pursued as targets for disrupting oncogenic gene regulatory programs. However, many proteins in this target class are universally essential for cell survival, which limits their therapeutic window. Here we unveil a genetic interaction between histone deacetylase 1 (HDAC1) and HDAC2, wherein each paralog is synthetically lethal with hemizygous deletion of the other. This collateral synthetic lethality is caused by recurrent chromosomal deletions that occur in diverse solid and hematological malignancies, including neuroblastoma and multiple myeloma. Using genetic disruption or dTAG-mediated degradation, we show that targeting HDAC2 suppresses the growth of HDAC1-deficient neuroblastoma in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, we find that targeted degradation of HDAC2 in these cells prompts the degradation of several members of the nucleosome remodeling and deacetylase (NuRD) complex, leading to diminished chromatin accessibility at HDAC2-NuRD-bound sites of the genome and impaired control of enhancer-associated transcription. Furthermore, we reveal that several of the degraded NuRD complex subunits are dependencies in neuroblastoma and multiple myeloma, providing motivation to develop paralog-selective HDAC1 or HDAC2 degraders that could leverage HDAC1/2 synthetic lethality to target NuRD vulnerabilities. Altogether, we identify HDAC1/2 collateral synthetic lethality as a potential therapeutic target and reveal an unexplored mechanism for targeting NuRD-associated cancer dependencies.

Mechanistic Elucidation of Activation/Deactivation Signal Transduction within Neurotensin Receptor 1 Triggered by 'Driver Chemical Groups' of Modulators: A Comparative Molecular Dynamics Simulation

Small-molecule modulators of neurotensin receptor 1 (NTSR1), a class A G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR), has emerged as promising therapeutic agent for psychiatric disorders and cancer. Interestingly, a chemical group substitution in NTSR1 modulators can launch different types of downstream regulation, highlighting the significance of deciphering the internal fine-tuning mechanism. Here, we conducted a synergistic application of a Gaussian accelerated molecular dynamics simulation, a conventional molecular dynamics simulation, and Markov state models (MSM) to investigate the underlying mechanism of 'driver chemical groups' of modulators triggering inverse signaling. The results indicated that the flexibility of the leucine moiety in NTSR1 agonists contributes to the inward displacement of TM7 through a loosely coupled allosteric pathway, while the rigidity of the adamantane moiety in NTSR1 antagonists leads to unfavorable downward transduction of agonistic signaling. Furthermore, we found that R322^6.54, Y319^6.51, F353^7.42, R148^3.32, S356^7.45, and S357^7.46 may play a key role in inducing the activation of NTSR1. Together, our findings not only highlight the ingenious signal transduction within class A GPCRs but also lay a foundation for the development of targeted drugs harboring different regulatory functions of NTSR1.

Quantitative structure-activity relationship study of amide derivatives as xanthine oxidase inhibitors using machine learning

The target of the study is to predict the inhibitory effect of amide derivatives on xanthine oxidase (XO) by building several models, which are based on the theory of the quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR). The heuristic method (HM) was used to linearly select descriptors and build a linear model. XGBoost was used to non-linearly select descriptors, and radial basis kernel function support vector regression (RBF SVR), polynomial kernel function SVR (poly SVR), linear kernel function SVR (linear SVR), mix-kernel function SVR (MIX SVR), and random forest (RF) were adopted to establish non-linear models, in which the MIX-SVR method gives the best result. The kernel function of MIX SVR has strong abilities of learning and generalization of established models simultaneously, which is because it is a combination of the linear kernel function, the radial basis kernel function, and the polynomial kernel function. In order to test the robustness of the models, leave-one-out cross validation (LOOCV) was adopted. In a training set, R2 = 0.97 and RMSE = 0.01; in a test set, R2 = 0.95, RMSE = 0.01, and Rcv2 = 0.96. This result is in line with the experimental expectations, which indicate that the MIX-SVR modeling approach has good applications in the study of amide derivatives.

[Opinion on the photoelectric therapy of scars]

Scars are problems that inevitably develop after deep dermal injury in the skin. Selecting appropriate photoelectric therapy for scars at different stages is an important part of scar management, which can shorten the acute inflammatory phase, accelerate scar maturation and regression, improve scar appearance and function, and reduce associated discomfort. Based on our team's practical experience and the current literature, this paper provides targeted photoelectric management protocols in the stages of wound healing, early scarring, hypertrophic scarring, and contracture scarring, with the aim of providing a reference for the development of standardized photoelectric therapy protocols for scars.

Topological Structure and Semantic Information Transfer Network for Cross-Scene Hyperspectral Image Classification

Domain adaptation techniques have been widely applied to the problem of cross-scene hyperspectral image (HSI) classification. Most existing methods use convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to extract statistical features from data and often neglect the potential topological structure information between different land cover classes. CNN-based approaches generally only model the local spatial relationships of the samples, which largely limits their ability to capture the nonlocal topological relationship that would better represent the underlying data structure of HSI. In order to make up for the above shortcomings, a Topological structure and Semantic information Transfer network (TSTnet) is developed. The method employs the graph structure to characterize topological relationships and the graph convolutional network (GCN) that is good at processing for cross-scene HSI classification. In the proposed TSTnet, graph optimal transmission (GOT) is used to align topological relationships to assist distribution alignment between the source domain and the target domain based on the maximum mean difference (MMD). Furthermore, subgraphs from the source domain and the target domain are dynamically constructed based on CNN features to take advantage of the discriminative capacity of CNN models that, in turn, improve the robustness of classification. In addition, to better characterize the correlation between distribution alignment and topological relationship alignment, a consistency constraint is enforced to integrate the output of CNN and GCN. Experimental results on three cross-scene HSI datasets demonstrate that the proposed TSTnet performs significantly better than some state-of-the-art domain-adaptive approaches. The codes will be available from the website: https://github.com/YuxiangZhang-BIT/IEEE_TNNLS_TSTnet.

Improved Measurement of the Evolution of the Reactor Antineutrino Flux and Spectrum at Daya Bay

Reactor neutrino experiments play a crucial role in advancing our knowledge of neutrinos. In this Letter, the evolution of the flux and spectrum as a function of the reactor isotopic content is reported in terms of the inverse-beta-decay yield at Daya Bay with 1958 days of data and improved systematic uncertainties. These measurements are compared with two signature model predictions: the Huber-Mueller model based on the conversion method and the SM2018 model based on the summation method. The measured average flux and spectrum, as well as the flux evolution with the ^{239}Pu isotopic fraction, are inconsistent with the predictions of the Huber-Mueller model. In contrast, the SM2018 model is shown to agree with the average flux and its evolution but fails to describe the energy spectrum. Altering the predicted inverse-beta-decay spectrum from ^{239}Pu fission does not improve the agreement with the measurement for either model. The models can be brought into better agreement with the measurements if either the predicted spectrum due to ^{235}U fission is changed or the predicted ^{235}U, ^{238}U, ^{239}Pu, and ^{241}Pu spectra are changed in equal measure.

[Advances on the application of physical airway clearance techniques in the treatment of inhalation injury]

Although the treatment of patients with burns combined with inhalation injury has achieved great success, from the perspective of epidemiology, inhalation injury is still the most common cause of death in mass burns. Such patients often suffered burns of large total body surface area, which is difficult to treat, with airway management as one of the core links. Physical airway clearance technique (ACT) acts on a patient's respiratory system by physical means, to discharge secretions and foreign bodies in the airway, achieve airway clearance, and improve gas exchange. In addition, the technique can prevent or alleviate many complications, thereby improving the clinical outcome of patients with inhalation injury. This article reviews the application of physical ACT in the field of inhalation injury, and to provide decision-making basis for clinical medical staff to choose physical ACT corresponding to the patient's condition.

NMR Magnetometer Based on Dynamic Nuclear-Polarization for Low-Strength Magnetic Field Measurement

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) magnetometers are considered due to their ability to map magnetic fields with high precision and calibrate other magnetic field measurement devices. However, the low signal-to-noise ratio of low-strength magnetic fields limits the precision when measuring magnetic fields below 40 mT. Therefore, we developed a new NMR magnetometer that combines the dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) technique with pulsed NMR. The dynamic pre-polarization technique enhances the SNR under a low magnetic field. Pulsed NMR was used in conjunction with DNP to improve measurement accuracy and speed. The efficacy of this approach was validated through simulation and analysis of the measurement process. Next, a complete set of equipment was constructed, and we successfully measured magnetic fields of 30 mT and 8 mT with an accuracy of only 0.5 Hz (11 nT) at 30 mT (0.4 ppm) and 1 Hz (22 nT) at 8mT (3 ppm).

[Analysis of different protein expression levels in peripheral blood circulating tumor cells from patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and their predictive efficiency for recurrence]

Objective: To analyze the expression levels of differentiation cluster 47 (CD47), signal regulatory protein α (SIRP-α), proto-oncogene (MYC) and proliferating cell associated antigen (Ki67) proteins in peripheral blood circulating tumor cells (CTC) from patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and their predictive efficiency for tumor recurrence. Methods: The data of 82 patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma who were confirmed by histopathology and were in remission after chemotherapy in the Hematology Department of Linyi People's Hospital from January 2018 to January 2021 were retrospectively analyzed. There were 44 males and 38 females, and aged from 50 to 75 (63.8±4.6) years. The patients were divided into recurrent group (n=36) and non-recurrent group (n=46) according to their recurrence within 1 year after remission. The fasting peripheral venous blood samples (4 ml) from patients in the morning were collected, and the CTC were isolated. The expression levels of CD47, SIRP-α, MYC and Ki67 proteins in CTC were detected by Western blotting. The correlations between CD47 expression level and SIRP-α, MYC and Ki67 expression levels were analyzed by Pearson correlation analysis. The predictive efficiency of CD47, SIRP-α, MYC and Ki67 expression levels on tumor recurrence was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, and the areas under the curve (AUC) were calculated. Results: The expression levels of CD47, SIRP-α, MYC and Ki67 in recurrent group were 2.24±0.23, 1.17±0.12, 1.98±0.20 and 2.63±0.27, while those in non-recurrent group were 2.04±0.21, 1.31±0.13, 1.53±0.16 and 2.24±0.25. The expression levels of CD47, MYC and Ki67 in the recurrent group were higher than those in the non-recurrent group, while the expression levels of SIRP-α were lower than those in the non-recurrent group (all P<0.001). In 82 patients, the expression levels of CD47, SIRP-α, MYC and Ki67 were 2.13±0.22, 1.25±0.13, 1.73±0.18 and 2.41±0.26, respectively. The expression level of CD47 was negatively correlated with the expression level of SIRP-α (r=-0.308, P=0.005), but positively correlated with the expression level of MYC and Ki67 (r=0.484 and 0.332, P=0.012 and 0.003). The sensitivity of CD47, SIRP-α, MYC and Ki67 expression levels in predicting recurrence of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma was 66.7%, 72.2%, 72.2% and 66.7%, with the specificity of 67.4%, 71.7%, 67.4% and 71.7%, and AUC (95%CI) of 0.694 (0.582-0.791), 0.693 (0582-0.790), 0.714 (0.603-0.808) and 0.709 (0.598-0.804), respectively. The sensitivity of the combined detection of the above four indicators was 83.3%, with the specificity of 78.3% and the AUC (95%CI) of 0.864 (0.771-0.930), which was higher than those of the individual detection of each indicator (all P<0.05). Conclusions: The expression level of CD47 was negatively correlated with the expression level of SIRP-α, but positively correlated with the expression level of MYC and Ki67. The expression levels of CD47, SIRP-α, MYC and Ki67 have certain predictive value for tumor recurrence in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, and the predictive efficiency of combined detection is higher than single indicator detection.

[Burden of non-communicable diseases attributable to population aging in China, 1990‒2050]

Objective: The direction and intensity of population aging on the burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in China from 1990 to 2019 were analyzed, and the burden of NCDs in 2050 was predicted. Methods: The disease-specific disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), years of life lost (YLLs), and years lived with disability (YLDs) in the Chinese population from 1990 to 2019 were obtained from the Global Burden of Disease Study.The differences in indicators from 1990 to 2019 were attributed to the contribution of age structure, population size, and all other causes. The Bayesian age-time-cohort models were used to predict DALYs from NCDs to 2050. Results: The absolute level of DALYs caused by NCDs increased by 7.460 million from 1990 to 2019, and the age structure contributed 186.0% (95% Uncertainty Intervals (UIs): 178.4%-193.6%), population size contributed 77.0% (95% UIs: 69.5%-80.8%), all other causes contributed -163.0% (95% UIs:-163.1%- -159.3%). DALYs caused by NCDs consist of 2.527 million YLLs and 4.934 million YLDs, in which the contribution of age structure to YLLs and YLDs was 414.6% (95% UIs: 396.2%-432.5%) and 69.1% (95% UIs: 66.7%-71.4%), respectively. From 2019 to 2050, the diseases with increased DALYs due to changes in age structure are cardiovascular diseases, neoplasms, chronic respiratory diseases, neurological disorders, sense organ diseases, diabetes and kidney diseases, musculoskeletal disorders, digestive diseases, mental disorders, and skin and subcutaneous diseases in descending order. Conclusions: From 1990 to 2019, except for skin and subcutaneous diseases, the burden of other NCDs attributable to population aging increased, mainly due to disability. By 2050, the burden of NCDsattributable to population aging will continue to rise.

Insights into cryptochrome modulation of ABA signaling to mediate dormancy regulation in Marchantia polymorpha

The acquisition of dormancy capabilities has enabled plants to survive in adverse terrestrial environmental conditions. Dormancy accumulation and release is coupled with light signaling, which is well studied in Arabidopsis, but it is unclear in the distant nonvascular relative. We study the characteristics and function on dormancy regulation of a blue light receptor cryptochrome in Marchantia polymorpha (MpCRY). Here, we identified MpCRY via bioinformatics and mutant complement analysis. The biochemical characteristics were assessed by multiple protein-binding assays. The function of MpCRY in gemma dormancy was clarified by overexpression and mutation of MpCRY, and its mechanism was analyzed via RNA sequencing and quantitative PCR analyses associated with hormone treatment. We found that the unique MpCRY protein in M. polymorpha undergoes both blue light-promoted interaction with itself (self-interaction) and blue light-dependent phosphorylation. MpCRY has the specific characteristics of blue light-induced nuclear localization and degradation. We further demonstrated that MpCRY transcriptionally represses abscisic acid (ABA) signaling-related gene expression to suppress gemma dormancy, which is dependent on blue light signaling. Our findings indicate that MpCRY possesses specific biochemical and molecular characteristics, and modulates ABA signaling under blue light conditions to regulate gemma dormancy in M. polymorpha.

Hyperspectral and LiDAR Data Classification Based on Structural Optimization Transmission

With the development of the sensor technology, complementary data of different sources can be easily obtained for various applications. Despite the availability of adequate multisource observation data, for example, hyperspectral image (HSI) and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data, existing methods may lack effective processing on structural information transmission and physical properties alignment, weakening the complementary ability of multiple sources in the collaborative classification task. The complementary information collaboration manner and the redundancy exclusion operator need to be redesigned for strengthening the semantic relatedness of multisources. As a remedy, we propose a structural optimization transmission framework, namely, structural optimization transmission network (SOT-Net), for collaborative land-cover classification of HSI and LiDAR data. Specifically, the SOT-Net is developed with three key modules: 1) cross-attention module; 2) dual-modes propagation module; and 3) dynamic structure optimization module. Based on above designs, SOT-Net can take full advantage of the reflectance-specific information of HSI and the detailed edge (structure) representations of multisource data. The inferred transmission plan, which integrates a self-alignment regularizer into the classification task, enhances the robustness of the feature extraction and classification process. Experiments show consistent outperformance of SOT-Net over baselines across three benchmark remote sensing datasets, and the results also demonstrate that the proposed framework can yield satisfying classification result even with small-size training samples.

Mesenchymal stem cells transplantation for perianal fistulas: a systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials

BACKGROUND

Perianal fistulas, characterised as granulomatous inflammation of fistulas around the anal canal, are associated with significant morbidity resulting in a negative impact on quality of life and a tremendous burden to the healthcare system. Treatment of anal fistulas usually consists of anal surgery; however, results of closure rates are not satisfactory especially with complex perianal fistulas, after which many patients may suffer from anal incontinence. Recently, the administration of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) has shown promising efficacy. Herein, we aim to explore whether MSCs are effective for complex perianal fistulas and if they have either short-term, medium-term, long-term or over-long-term efficacy. Additionally, we want to elucidate whether factors such as drug dosage, MSC source, cell type, and disease aetiology influence treatment efficacy. We searched four online databases and analysed data based on information within the clinical trials registry. The outcomes of eligible trials were analysed with Review Manager 5.4.1. Relative risk and related 95% confidence interval were calculated to compare the effect between the MSCs and control groups. In addition, the Cochrane risk of bias tool was applied to evaluate the bias risk of eligible studies. Meta-analyses showed that therapy with MSCs was superior to conventional treatment for complex perianal fistulas in short-, long- and over-long-term follow-up phases. However, there was no statistical difference in treatment efficacy in the medium term between the two methods. Subgroup meta-analyses showed factors including cell type, cell source and cell dosage were superior compared to the control, but there was no significant difference between different experimental groups of those factors. Besides, local MSCs therapy has shown more promising results for fistulas as a result of Crohn's Disease (CD). Although we tend to maintain that MSCs therapy is effective for cryptoglandular fistulas equally, more studies are needed to confirm this conclusion in the future.

SHORT CONCLUSION

MSCs Transplantation could be a new therapeutic method for complex perianal fistulas of both cryptoglandular and CD origin showing high efficacy in the short-term to over-long-term phases, as well as high efficacy in sustained healing. The difference in cell types, cell sources and cell dosages did not influence MSCs' efficacy.

[Clinical analysis of 11 cases of pregnancy with aortic dissection]

Objective: To investigate the treatment and maternal and fetal outcomes of pregnant women with aortic dissection (AD). Methods: The clinical data of 11 pregnant women with AD treated at the First Affiliated Hospital of Air Force Military Medical University from January 1st, 2011 to August 1st, 2022 were collected, and their clinical characteristics, treatment plans and maternal and fetal outcomes were analyzed retrospectively. Results: (1) Clinical characteristics: the age of onset of 11 pregnant women with AD was (30±5) years old, and the week of pregnancy of onset was (31.4±8.0) weeks. Clinical manifestations: the main symptoms were sudden onset of chest and back pain or low back pain. Type of AD: 8 cases of Stanford type A, and 3 cases of type B. The aortic width was (42±11) mm. Diagnostic methods: the diagnosis of AD was confirmed by transthoracic echocardiography (TTE), computed tomography angiography (CTA) or enhanced CT examination, among which 4 cases were confirmed by CTA examination, 4 cases by TTE examination, and 3 cases by enhanced CT examination. Laboratory results: white blood cell count was (15.4±8.7) ×10⁹/L, neutrophil count was (13.5±8.5) ×10⁹/L, the median D-dimer level was 2.7 mg/L (2.1-9.2 mg/L), and the median fibrin degradation products level was 12.0 mg/L (5.4-36.1 mg/L). (2) Treatments: all 11 patients were admitted to hospital in emergency. Before operation, the departments of cardiac surgery, obstetrics, pediatrics and anesthesiology cooperated to develop individualized treatment plan. Aortic surgery was performed in 11 pregnant women with AD. In 6 of them, pregnancy termination was performed at the same time as aortic surgery, and aortic surgery was performed after cesarean section. Four cases of pregnancy termination and aortic operation were performed by stages, including aortic operation after cesarean section in 2 cases, and cesarean section after aortic operation in 2 cases. One case (12⁺⁶ weeks of gestation) had spontaneous abortion on the day after aortic surgery. The gestational age of the 11 patients on pregnancy termination was (32.9±7.4) weeks. Aorta surgical methods: 7 patients received under extracorporeal circulation ascending aorta replacement ± aortic valve replacement ± coronary artery transplantation (or coronary artery bypass transplantation)± left and right coronary Cabrol + total arch replacement (or aortic arch replacement)± stent implantation, 1 patient received under extracorporeal circulation aortic root replacement, and 3 patients underwent aortic endoluminal isolation. (3) Maternal and fetal outcomes: among the 11 pregnant women with AD, 9 (9/11) survived, 2 (2/11) died with lower limb ischemia before the onset of the disease. A total of 10 newborns were born in 9 pregnant women after delivery (1 of them was twins), and the 2 cases were spontaneous abortion after aortic surgery in the first trimester (12⁺⁶ weeks) and fetal death after hysterotomy in the second trimester (26⁺³ weeks), respectively. Among the 10 surviving neonates, 3 were full-term infants and 7 were premature infants. The birth weight of newborn was (2 651±784) g. Respiratory distress syndrome was found in 6 cases. The newborns were followed up for (5.6±3.6) years after birth, and the infants developed well during the follow-up period. Conclusions: Pregnancy complicated with AD is dangerous, and chest and back pain is the main clinical manifestation of this disease. With early identification and selection of appropriate diagnostic methods, multidisciplinary diagnosis and treatment, mother and children could obtain good outcomes.