Netrin-1 Promotes M2 Type Activation and Inhibits Pyroptosis of Microglial Cells by Depressing RAC1/Nf-?B Pathway to Alleviate Inflammatory Pain

Netrin-1 (NTN-1) plays a vital role in the progress of nervous system development and inflammatory diseases. However, the role and underlying mechanism of NTN-1 in inflammatory pain (IP) are unclear. BV2 microglia were treated with LPS to mimic the cell status under IP. Adeno-associated virus carrying the NTN-1 gene (AAV-NTN-1) was used to overexpress NTN-1. Complete Freund's Adjuvant (CFA)-induced mouse was recruited as an in vivo model. MTT and commercial kits were utilized to evaluate cell viability and cell death of BV2 cells. The mRNA expressions and secretions of cytokines were measured using the ELISA method. Also, the pyroptosis and activation of BV2 cells were investigated based on western blotting. To verify the role of Rac1/NF-kappaB signaling, isochamaejasmin (ISO) and AAV-Rac1 were presented. The results showed that NTN-1 expression was decreased in LPS-treated BV2 microglia and spinal cord tissues of CFA-injected mice. Overexpressing NTN-1 dramatically reversed cell viability and decreased cell death rate of BV2 microglia under lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation, while the level of pyroptosis was inhibited. Besides, AAV-NTN-1 rescued the activation of microglia and inflammatory injury induced by LPS, decreasing IBA-1 expression, as well as iNOS, IL-1beta and IL-6 secretions. Meanwhile AAV-NTN-1 promoted the anti-inflammation response, including increases in Arg-1, IL-4 and IL-10 levels. In addition, the LPS-induced activation of Rac1/NF-kappaB signaling was depressed by NTN-1 overexpression. The same results were verified in a CFA-induced mouse model. In conclusion, NTN-1 alleviated IP by suppressing pyroptosis and promoting M2 type activation of microglia via inhibiting Rac1/NF-?B signaling, suggesting the protective role of NTN-1 in IP. Keywords: Netrin-1, Inflammatory pain, Pyroptosis, Microglia M2 activation, Rac1/NF-kappaB.

Sleeve gastrectomy links the attenuation of diabetic kidney disease to the inhibition of renal tubular ferroptosis through down-regulating TGF-β1/Smad3 signaling pathway

PURPOSE

To investigate how sleeve gastrectomy (SG), a typical operation of bariatric surgery, attenuated symptom, and progression of diabetic kidney disease (DKD).

METHODS

DKD model was induced by high-fat diet (HFD) combined with streptozocin in Wistar rats. SG was performed, and the group subjected to sham surgery served as control. The animals were euthanized 12 weeks after surgery, followed by sample collection for the subsequent experiment. The HK-2, a renal proximal tubular epithelial cell line derived from human, was utilized to investigate the potential mechanisms.

RESULTS

SG improved metabolic parameters and glucose homeostasis, and could alleviate DKD in terms of renal function indices as well as histological and morphological structures in DM rats, accompanied with a significant reduction in renal tubular injury. Compared with sham group, SG reduced the renal tubular ferroptosis. To further clarify the mechanism involved, in vitro experiments were performed. In the presence of high glucose, renal tubular TGF-β1 secretion was significantly increased in HK-2 cell line, which led to activation of ferroptosis through TGF-β1/Smad3 signaling pathway. Inhibition of TGF-β1 receptor and phosphorylation of Smad3 significantly ameliorated TGF-β1-mediated ferroptosis. In vivo experiments also found that SG improved the hyperglycemic environment, reduced renal TGF-β1 concentrations, and down-regulated the TGF-β1/Smad3 signaling pathway.

CONCLUSIONS

With the capacity to lower the glucose, SG could attenuate the ferroptosis by inhibiting TGF-β1/Smad3 signaling pathway in DKD rats, and eventually attenuated DKD.

Characterization of striatal dopamine projections across striatal subregions in behavioral flexibility

Behavioural flexibility is key to survival in a dynamic environmentWhile flexible, goal-directed behaviours are initially dependent on dorsomedial striatum, they become dependent on lateral striatum as behaviours become inflexible. Similarly, lesions of dopamine terminals in lateral striatum disrupt the development of inflexible habits. This work suggests that dopamine release in lateral striatum may drive inflexible behaviours, though few studies have investigated a causative role of subpopulations of striatal dopamine terminals in reversal learning, a measure of flexibility. Here, we performed two optogenetic experiments to activate dopamine terminals in dorsomedial (DMS), dorsolateral (DLS) or ventral (nucleus accumbens [NAc]) striatum in DAT-Cre mice that expressed channelrhodopsin-2 via viral injection (Experiment I) or through transgenic breeding with an Ai32 reporter line (Experiment II) to determine how specific dopamine subpopulations impact reversal learning. Mice performed a reversal task in which they self-stimulated DMS, DLS, or NAc dopamine terminals by pressing one of two levers before action-outcome lever contingencies were reversed. Largely consistent with presumed ventromedial/lateral striatal function, we found that mice self-stimulating medial dopamine terminals reversed lever preference following contingency reversal, while mice self-stimulating NAc showed parial flexibility, and DLS self-stimulation resulted in impaired reversal. Impairments in DLS mice were characterized by more regressive errors and reliance on lose-stay strategies following reversal, as well as reduced within-session learning, suggesting reward insensitivity and overreliance on previously learned actions. This study supports a model of striatal function in which DMS and ventral dopamine facilitate goal-directed responding, and DLS dopamine supports more inflexible responding.

Long-Term Anorectal Function in Rectal Cancer Patients Managed by a Watch-and-Wait Strategy after Neoadjuvant Therapy: A Cross-Sectional Study

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVE(S)

Rectal cancer patients reaching complete clinical response (cCR) after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy can be offered a nonoperative watch-and-wait (W&W) strategy. As evidence of good oncological outcomes accumulates, the functional outcomes remain less explored. The aim of this study is to comprehensively assess the long-term rectal toxicity and anorectal function in patients managed by a W&W strategy and to investigate the clinical risk factors for anorectal dysfunction.

MATERIALS/METHODS

Seventy W&W patients who were disease-free at the moment of recruitment were included. A minimum 2-year follow-up was considered. We graded late rectal toxicity according to the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group/European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (RTOG/EORTC) scale and the Late Effects of Normal Tissue/Subjective Objective Management Analytic (LENT/SOMA) system. Long-term anorectal function was assessed with the Wexner score, the Low Anterior Resection Syndrome score (LARS score), and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Bowel Function Instrument (MSK BFI).

RESULTS

All patients received standard chemoradiotherapy consisting of a total dose of 5000 cGy in 25 fractions. The median tumor distance from the anal verge was 3 (IQR 2-4) cm. After a median follow-up of 43 (IQR 28-66) months, less than half of patients developed Grade 1 (40.0%) or Grade 2 (1.4%) late rectal toxicity, and no patients complained of higher grades. LENT/SOMA criteria also identified more patients with mild symptoms. The most frequent symptoms were sphincter control problems, mainly manifested as fecal urgency, reported by 60.0% of patients. For long-term anorectal function, the median LARS score was 16 (IQR 4-25). 17.1% of patients reported minor LARS and 15.7% reported major LARS. The median Wexner score was 2 (IQR 0-3). The median MSK BFI total score was 82 (IQR 77-86). Smoking history was an independent risk factor for anorectal dysfunction in multivariate analyses (OR = 6.491, 95% CI 1.536-27.432).

CONCLUSION

Rectal cancer patients managed by a watch-and-wait strategy after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy have retained satisfactory anorectal function. However, fecal urgency might be a common problem. Smoking history was an independent risk factor for long-term anorectal dysfunction. Prospective studies with emphasis on bowel function outcomes containing a larger number of patients are needed.

Changes in physical activity and all-cause mortality in the oldest old population: Findings from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS)

BACKGROUND

Insufficient or decreasing physical activity is common in older adults. Most studies on physical activity changes and mortality were conducted in adults younger than 80 years old in developed countries. We aimed to investigate the relationship between changes in physical activity and longevity in the oldest old (80 years or older) population using the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey.

METHODS

Participants aged 80 or older at baseline were categorized into four groups: 1) remaining physically inactive (n = 14,287), 2) remaining physically active (n = 5411), 3) shifting from being inactive to active (n = 1364), and 4) shifting from being active to inactive (n = 1401). We fitted accelerated failure time Weibull survival regression models, adjusting for baseline sociodemographics, lifestyle factors and disease status. We further examined whether the associations differed by subgroups.

RESULTS

A total of 15,707 participants died during follow-up (median duration of follow-up = 3.0 years). Compared with participants who remained physically inactive, those who remained active (fully adjusted event time ratio (ETR): 1.14, 95%CI: 1.11-1.17) or shifted from being inactive to active (fully adjusted ETR: 1.14, 95%CI: 1.08-1.20) had statistically significant longer survival time. No significant association was observed between remaining physically inactive and shifting from being active to inactive. Subgroup analyses showed consistent associations in nearly all strata.

CONCLUSION

Maintaining frequent physical activity or shifting from being physically inactive to active was consistently associated with longer survival time in the oldest old population. Our findings provide evidence for encouraging older adults to regularly engage in physical activity to gain longevity benefits.

An extensive benchmark study on biomedical text generation and mining with ChatGPT

MOTIVATION

In recent years, the development of natural language process (NLP) technologies and deep learning hardware has led to significant improvement in large language models (LLMs). The ChatGPT, the state-of-the-art LLM built on GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, shows excellent capabilities in general language understanding and reasoning. Researchers also tested the GPTs on a variety of NLP-related tasks and benchmarks and got excellent results. With exciting performance on daily chat, researchers began to explore the capacity of ChatGPT on expertise that requires professional education for human and we are interested in the biomedical domain.

RESULTS

To evaluate the performance of ChatGPT on biomedical-related tasks, this article presents a comprehensive benchmark study on the use of ChatGPT for biomedical corpus, including article abstracts, clinical trials description, biomedical questions, and so on. Typical NLP tasks like named entity recognization, relation extraction, sentence similarity, question and answering, and document classification are included. Overall, ChatGPT got a BLURB score of 58.50 while the state-of-the-art model had a score of 84.30. Through a series of experiments, we demonstrated the effectiveness and versatility of ChatGPT in biomedical text understanding, reasoning and generation, and the limitation of ChatGPT build on GPT-3.5.

AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION

All the datasets are available from BLURB benchmark https://microsoft.github.io/BLURB/index.html. The prompts are described in the article.

[Normative wideband absorbance measures in children: a cross-sectional study]

Objective: This study was to investigate the main characteristics and related factors of wideband absorbance (WBA) in children with normal hearing and to obtain age-specific reference range of WBA. Methods: 384 children between 0-12 years old (615 ears) who visited the Beijing Children's Hospital, Capital Medical University from October 2019 to February 2021 were enrolled, including 230 males (376 ears) and 154 females (239 ears), with totally 306 left ears and 309 right ears. Wideband tympanometry (WBT) was performed and normative WBA data were analyzed by SPSS 24.0 statistical software. Repeated measures and multivariate analysis of variance were applied to the data from 16 points at 1/3-octave frequencies (226, 324, 408, 500, 667, 841, 1 000, 1 297, 1 682, 2 000, 2 670, 3 364, 4 000, 5 339, 6 727 and 8 000 Hz) to evaluate the effects of frequency, age, external auditory canal pressures, gender and ear on WBA. Results: According to the WBT frequency-absorbance curve, the subjects were divided into seven groups: 1-month old group, 2-month old group, 3-month old group, 4-5 month old group, 6-24 month old group,>2-6 year old group and>6-12 year old group. The WBA of normal-hearing children underwent a series of developmental changes with age at both ambient pressure and tympanometric peak pressures. WBA results for 1-month group and 2-month old group exhibited a multipeaked pattern, with the peaks occurring around 2 000 and 4 897 Hz, and a notch around 3 886 Hz. WBA results for 3-month group and 4-5 month old group exhibited a single broad-peaked pattern, with the peak occurring between 2 000-4 757 Hz. The WBA of 1-month old group to 4-5 month old group decreased gradually at low frequency (226-408 Hz) and 6 727 Hz, and increased at middle to high frequency (2 670-4 000 Hz). The WBA of 6-24 month old group were significantly lower than that of 2-month old group to 4-5 month old group at all frequencies except 3 364 and 4 000 Hz. WBA results for 6-24 month old group,>2-6 year old group and>6-12 year old group exhibited a single-peaked pattern, and the peak frequency of WBA moved to the lower frequency successively. From 6-24 month old group to>6-12 year old group, the WBA gradually increased at low to middle frequencies (667-2 670 Hz) and 8 000 Hz, and decreased at middle to high frequencies (3 364-5 339 Hz). Among the 16 frequencies of all age groups, the difference between WBA under ambient pressure and tympanometric peak pressure were -0.09-0.06, and 43.75%-81.25% frequency points had statistically significant difference, which was mainly manifested in that WBA under ambient pressure were lower than that under tympanometric peak pressure at 226-1 682 Hz. There was no significant ear effect on all of the age groups. Similarly, there was no significant gender effect except for 3-month old group and 4-5 month old group. Conclusions: The WBA of normal-hearing children measured at ambient pressure and tympanometric peak pressure varied across the frequencies with age from 1 month to 12 years old, and different frequencies followed different change patterns (increase vs. decrease) in WBA. There was also significant external auditory canal pressures effect on all of the age groups. The establishment of age-specific reference range of WBA for 0-12 years old normal-hearing children in this study would be useful for clinical practice of determining normative data regarding WBT.

Evaluating the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of free influenza vaccination policy for older adults in Yinzhou, China: Study protocol of a real-world analyses

BACKGROUND

Influenza causes excessive morbidity and mortality among older adults. While influenza vaccine provides protection against its infection, the vaccination coverage in China among older adults has been very low. Previous evidence on the cost-effectiveness of government-sponsored free influenza vaccination programs in China was primarily based on literature data, which might not always reflect real-world patient populations. The Yinzhou Health Information System (YHIS) is a regional database that captures electronic health records, insurance claims data, etc. for all residents in Yinzhou district, Zhejiang province, China. We will use YHIS to study the effectiveness, influenza-related direct medical cost and cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) of the free influenza vaccination program for older adults. In this paper, we describe the study design and innovations in detail.

METHODS

We will establish a retrospective cohort of permanent older residents aged 65 and over, using YHIS between 2016 and 2021. We will estimate the vaccine coverage rate, influenza incidence rate and influenza-related direct medical cost from 2016 to 2021. Regression discontinuity will be used to estimate vaccine effectiveness for the 2020/2021 season. We will build a decision tree model to compare the cost-effectiveness of three influenza vaccination options (free trivalent influenza vaccine, free quadrivalent influenza vaccine, and no policy) from both societal and health system perspectives. Parameter inputs will be gathered from both YHIS and published literature. We will calculate the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio with cost and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) discounted at 5 % annually.

DISCUSSION

Our CEA solidifies multiple sources including regional real-world data and literature for a rigorous evaluation of the government-sponsored free influenza vaccination program. The results will provide real-world evidence from real-world data on the cost-effectiveness of a real-world policy. Our findings are expected to support evidence-based policy making and to promote health for older adults.

[Structural changes of the frontal cortex in depressed mice are associated with decreased expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor]

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the changes in gray matter volume in depressive-like mice and explore the possible mechanism.

METHODS

Twenty-four 6-week-old C57 mice were randomized equally into control group and model group, and the mice in the model group were subjected to chronic unpredictable mild stimulation (CUMS) for 35 days. Magnetic resonance imaging was performed to examine structural changes of the grey matter volume in depressive-like mice. The expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the grey matter of the mice was detected using Western blotting and immunofluorescence staining.

RESULTS

Compared with the control mice, the mice with CUMS showed significantly decreased central walking distance in the open field test (P < 0.05) and increased immobile time in forced swimming test (P < 0.05). Magnetic resonance imaging showed that the volume of the frontal cortex was significantly decreased in CUMS mice (P < 0.001, when the mass level was greater than or equal to 10 756, the FDRc was corrected with P=0.05). Western blotting showed that the expression of mature BDNF in the frontal cortex was significantly decreased in CUMS mice (P < 0.05), and its expression began to decrease after the exposure to CUMS as shown by immunofluorescence staining. The volume of different clusters obtained by voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis was correlated with the expression level of mature BDNF detected by Western blotting (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

The decrease of frontal cortex volume after CUMS is related with the reduction of mature BDNF expression in the frontal cortex.

Pharmacophoric-constrained heterogeneous graph transformer model for molecular property prediction

Informative representation of molecules is a crucial prerequisite in AI-driven drug design and discovery. Pharmacophore information including functional groups and chemical reactions can indicate molecular properties, which have not been fully exploited by prior atom-based molecular graph representation. To obtain a more informative representation of molecules for better molecule property prediction, we propose the Pharmacophoric-constrained Heterogeneous Graph Transformer (PharmHGT). We design a pharmacophoric-constrained multi-views molecular representation graph, enabling PharmHGT to extract vital chemical information from functional substructures and chemical reactions. With a carefully designed pharmacophoric-constrained multi-view molecular representation graph, PharmHGT can learn more chemical information from molecular functional substructures and chemical reaction information. Extensive downstream experiments prove that PharmHGT achieves remarkably superior performance over the state-of-the-art models the performance of our model is up to 1.55% in ROC-AUC and 0.272 in RMSE higher than the best baseline model) on molecular properties prediction. The ablation study and case study show that our proposed molecular graph representation method and heterogeneous graph transformer model can better capture the pharmacophoric structure and chemical information features. Further visualization studies also indicated a better representation capacity achieved by our model.

Machine learning-based prediction of infarct size in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction: A multi-center study

BACKGROUND

Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) is the gold standard for measuring infarct size (IS). However, this method is expensive and requires a specially trained technologist to administer. We therefore sought to quantify the IS using machine learning (ML) based analysis on clinical features, which is a convenient and cost-effective alternative to CMR.

METHODS AND RESULTS

We included 315 STEMI patients with CMR examined one week after morbidity in final analysis. After feature selection by XGBoost on fifty-six clinical features, we used five ML algorithms (random forest (RF), light gradient boosting decision machine, deep forest, deep neural network, and stacking) to predict IS with 26 (selected by XGBoost with information gain greater than average level of 56 features) and the top 10 features, during which 5-fold cross-validation were used to train and optimize models. We then evaluated the value of actual and ML-IS for the prediction of adverse remodeling. Our finding indicates that MLs outperform the linear regression in predicting IS. Specifically, the RF with five predictors identified by the exhaustive method performed better than linear regression (LR) with 10 indicators (R² of RF: 0.8; LR: 0). The finding also shows that both actual and ML-IS were independently associated with adverse remodeling. ML-IS ≥ 21% was associated with a twofold increase in the risk of LV remodeling (P < 0.01) compared with patients with reference IS (1st tertile).

CONCLUSION

ML-based methods can predict IS with widely available clinical features, which provide a proof-of-concept tool to quantitatively assess acute phase IS.

Effect of surface gallium termination on the formation and emission energy of an InGaAs wetting layer during the growth of InGaAs quantum dots by droplet epitaxy

Self-assembled quantum dots (QDs) based on III-V semiconductors have excellent properties for applications in quantum optics. However, the presence of a 2D wetting layer (WL) which forms during the Stranski-Krastanov growth of QDs can limit their performance. Here, we investigate WL formation during QD growth by the droplet epitaxy technique. We use a combination of photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy, lifetime measurements, and transmission electron microscopy to identify the presence of an InGaAs WL in these droplet epitaxy QDs, even in the absence of distinguishable WL luminescence. We observe that increasing the amount of Ga deposited on a GaAs (100) surface prior to the growth of InGaAs QDs leads to a significant reduction in the emission wavelength of the WL to the point where it can no longer be distinguished from the GaAs acceptor peak emission in photoluminescence measurements. However increasing the amount of Ga deposited does not suppress the formation of a WL under the growth conditions used here.

Chronotype and insomnia may affect the testosterone levels with a sexual difference: a Mendelian randomization

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the causal effects of sleep traits (i.e., chronotype, insomnia, and sleep duration) on bioavailable testosterone (BT), sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), and total testosterone (TT) levels in women and men.

METHODS

We performed Mendelian randomization (MR) using random-effect inverse-variance weighted (IVW) and 7 other MR analyses. Exposure data for sleep traits were obtained from the largest-to-date genome-wide association study (GWAS) from 339,926 to 1,331,010 individuals. Summary data for testosterone levels were obtained from GWAS based on the UK Biobank.

RESULTS

For women, our study supported that chronotype was associated with decreased BT (IVW: β = - 0.042, 95% CI - 0.060, - 0.023, p = 1.17E-05) and TT (IVW: - 0.053, 95% CI - 0.075, - 0.031, p = 2.30E-06). Besides, insomnia can significantly increase BT (IVW: β = 0.025, 95% CI 0.009, 0.041, p = 0.002). These findings were significant in most sensitivity analyses. For men, statistical significance was found between chronotype and BT (β = - 0.027, 95% CI - 0.048, - 0.005, p = 0.016), and insomnia and TT (β = - 0.028, 95% CI - 0.049, 0.007, p = 0.009) in IVW. However, the effect estimates were not broadly consistent with other sensitivity analyses. Our study did not find support for causal effects of sleep duration on testosterone levels in both women and men.

CONCLUSION

Our study reveals the sex differences in the effects of sleep traits on testosterone levels. A healthy sleep habit is vital for the maintenance of testosterone homeostasis in women. Further studies are warranted to investigate the associations between sleep traits and testosterone levels in men.

Mediation analysis of leisure activities on the association between cognitive function and mortality: longitudinal study of 42,942 Chinese adults 65 years and older

Objectives

Previous studies have associated cognitive function and leisure activities with mortality. This study aimed to evaluate whether leisure activities causally mediate this association.

Methods

This longitudinal study included 42,246 participants aged over 65 years from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS). The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and a self-reported scale were used to measure cognitive status and leisure activities, respectively. We examined cognitive function and leisure activities for their associations with mortality by using Cox proportional hazards models. Causal mediation analysis was used to access whether leisure activities mediate the association between cognitive function and mortality.

Results

Cognitive function and leisure activities were inversely associated with mortality. Leisure activities accounted for 28.3% (95% CI: 25.6 - 31.1%) of the total effect (TE) of cognitive function and mortality. A higher mediated proportion (PM) of physical leisure activities (PM = 20.1%, 95% CI: 18.0 - 22.3%) was observed than that of social leisure activities (PM = 17.7%, 95% CI: 15.7 - 19.7%). The mediating effect is higher among participants at younger ages (PM = 41.5%, 95% CI: 21.3 - 65.4%), with higher education levels (PM = 30.5%, 95% CI: 25.3 - 36.2%), and rural residents (PM = 42.5%, 95% CI: 25.4 - 62.5%).

Conclusion

Cognitive function was associated with inverse mortality. Leisure activities significantly mediated this association. Participation in leisure activities, at the early stages of mild cognitive impairment, could reduce the risk of mortality, which has a major impact on interventional strategies for healthy ageing.

Magnetic-field-synchronized wireless modulation of neural activity by magnetoelectric nanoparticles

The in vitro study demonstrates wirelessly controlled modulation of neural activity using magnetoelectric nanoparticles (MENPs), synchronized to magnetic field application with a sub-25-msec temporal response. Herein, MENPs are sub-30-nm CoFe₂O₄@BaTiO₃ core-shell nanostructures. MENPs were added to E18 rat hippocampal cell cultures (0.5 μg of MENPs per 100,000 neurons) tagged with fluorescent Ca²⁺ sensitive indicator cal520. MENPs were shown to wirelessly induce calcium transients which were synchronized with application of 1200-Oe bipolar 25-msec magnetic pulses at a rate of 20 pulses/sec. The observed calcium transients were similar, in shape and magnitude, to those generated through the control electric field stimulation with a 50-μA current, and they were inhibited by the sodium channel blocker tetrodotoxin. The observed MENP-based magnetic excitation of neural activity is in agreement with the non-linear M - H hysteresis loop of the MENPs, wherein the MENPs' coercivity value sets the threshold for the externally applied magnetic field.

Effectiveness of vitamin D supplementation on knee osteoarthritis - A target trial emulation study using data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative cohort

OBJECTIVE

To assess the real-world effectiveness of vitamin D supplementation in patients with knee osteoarthritis (KOA) by replicating a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design in an observational study.

METHOD

This study emulated a target trial using data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI). Eligible participants were ≥45 years, had symptomatic KOA and did not take vitamin D supplements in the past 30 days. A participant can enter the trial more than once. Participants were included in vitamin D group if they took ≥1,000 IU/day for ≥4 days/week in the past 30 days at the first follow-up visit after baseline. The control group did not use vitamin D in the past 30 days. Optimal propensity score matching at 1:1 ratio was performed. The primary outcome was change in knee pain 2 years after baseline measured by the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC). Secondary outcomes included WOMAC physical function and quantitative joint space width (JSW). Standardized mean difference (SMD) was used to compare the findings with previous RCTs.

RESULTS

A total of 236 person-trials in the vitamin D group were pair-matched with a control. Compared to the control group, vitamin D supplementation did not reach significant changes in WOMAC pain (SMD = -0.04, 95%CI [-0.21, 0.13]), physical function and radiographic JSW over 2 years. The SMDs were consistent with the effect sizes reported in previous RCTs.

CONCLUSION

Target trial emulation in the OAI cohort demonstrated findings close to published RCTs. This supports the future use of target trial emulation in evaluating other systemic therapies for KOA.

Pre-Training of Equivariant Graph Matching Networks with Conformation Flexibility for Drug Binding

The latest biological findings observe that the motionless "lock-and-key" theory is not generally applicable and that changes in atomic sites and binding pose can provide important information for understanding drug binding. However, the computational expenditure limits the growth of protein trajectory-related studies, thus hindering the possibility of supervised learning. A spatial-temporal pre-training method based on the modified equivariant graph matching networks, dubbed ProtMD which has two specially designed self-supervised learning tasks: atom-level prompt-based denoising generative task and conformation-level snapshot ordering task to seize the flexibility information inside molecular dynamics (MD) trajectories with very fine temporal resolutions is presented. The ProtMD can grant the encoder network the capacity to capture the time-dependent geometric mobility of conformations along MD trajectories. Two downstream tasks are chosen to verify the effectiveness of ProtMD through linear detection and task-specific fine-tuning. A huge improvement from current state-of-the-art methods, with a decrease of 4.3% in root mean square error for the binding affinity problem and an average increase of 13.8% in the area under receiver operating characteristic curve and the area under the precision-recall curve for the ligand efficacy problem is observed. The results demonstrate a strong correlation between the magnitude of conformation's motion in the 3D space and the strength with which the ligand binds with its receptor.

Aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 rs671 polymorphism and multiple diseases: protocol for a quantitative umbrella review of meta-analyses

BACKGROUND

The mutant allele (*2) of aldehyde dehydrogenase type 2 (ALDH2) caused by a single nucleotide variant (rs671) inhibits enzymatic activity and is associated with multiple diseases. In recent years, an explosive number of original studies and meta-analyses have been conducted to examine the associations of ALDH2 rs671 polymorphism with diseases. Due to conflicting results, the overall associations of ALDH2 rs671 polymorphism and multiple diseases remain unclear.

METHODS

A quantitative umbrella review will be conducted on meta-analyses of genetic association studies to examine the pleiotropic effects of ALDH2 rs671, mainly including cardio-cerebral vascular disease, diabetes mellitus, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, and alcohol-induced medical disease. A search of relevant literature according to comprehensive search strategies will be performed on studies published before July 1st, 2022 in PubMed, MEDLINE Ovid, Embase, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Web of Science. Study selection, data extraction, methodology quality assessment, and strength of evidence assessment will be conducted by two reviewers independently and in duplicate. Included meta-analyses will be grouped by outcomes. Data conflicts and overlap between meta-analyses will be managed through updated standardized and customized methods including the calculation of CCA for study selection reference, application of Doi plots to assess small-study effects and others. Evidence from included meta-analyses will be quantitatively synthesized by overlap-corrected analyses and meta-analysis using primary studies.

DISCUSSION

This umbrella review is expected to generate systematic evidence on the association between ALDH2 rs671 and diseases. Specific approaches were developed to address key challenges in conducting an umbrella review, including assessment tools of methodology and evidence quality of meta-analyses, methods to manage overlap between meta-analyses, a "stop-light" plot to summarize key findings. These approaches provide applicable methods for future umbrella reviews of meta-analyses on genetic association studies.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

CRD42021223812.

The association between self-rated health and all-cause mortality and explanatory factors in China's oldest-old population

Background

Self-rated health (SRH) is considered a condensed summary of information about bodily conditions that involves people’s biological, cognitive, and cultural status, but has been under-studied in the oldest old population. This study aimed to investigate the association between SRH and all-cause mortality among the oldest-old population in China and to explore potential explanatory factors in this association.

Methods

The study was based on the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) from 1998 to 2018 and included 30 222 participants aged 80 years or older (ie, the oldest old) in the analysis. We used Cox models to assess the association between SRH and mortality in this population and its subgroups, and used the Percentage Excess Risk Mediated approach to identify potential contributing factors.

Results

After adjustment of confounders, people with “good” “neutral”, and “bad/very bad” SRH were significantly associated with 8% (95% confidence interval (CI) = 3%-13%), 23% (95% CI = 18%-29%), and 52% (95% CI = 44%-61%) higher hazard of mortality respectively, compared with those with “very good” SRH. The significant SRH-mortality associations were exclusive to men and those with at least primary education. The adjustment of “regular physical activity”, “leisure activity”, “activities of daily living (ADL)”, and “cognitive function” all led to noticeable attenuation to the SRH-mortality association, with “leisure activity” causing the most attenuation (64.9%) in the “Good SRH” group.

Conclusions

Self-rated health is significantly associated with all-cause mortality among the oldest old population in China, particularly among men and the educated, and is considerably explained by regular physical activity, leisure activity, ADL, and cognitive function. We advocate the use of SRH as a simple and efficient tool in research and (potentially) health care practices.

Healthy eating and all-cause mortality among Chinese aged 80 years or older

Background

There is little evidence of the influence of dietary patterns on mortality risk among adults 80 years or older (“oldest-old”). We evaluated the association between the Simplified Healthy Eating index (SHE-index) and mortality among Chinese oldest-old.

Methods

Population-based cohort study from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS 1998–2014, n = 35 927), conducted in 22 Chinese provinces, were pooled for analysis. The first seven waves of the CLHLS (1998, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2008–09, 2011–12, and 2013–2014) were utilized, with follow-up to the last wave (2018) (range 0–21 years). The SHE-index was collected in each wave, and was constructed from intake frequency of nine dietary variables, with a higher score indicating better diet quality. Cox proportional hazards model with dietary patterns as a time-varying exposure was employed to analyze the relationship between SHE-index and mortality.

Results

At baseline, the median age of all participants was 92 years (25th percentile, 85 years; 75th percentile, 100 years). In multivariable models, the hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) for SHE-index quartile 2, quartile 3 and quartile 4 versus quartile1 were 0.91 (0.88, 0.93), 0.89 (0.86, 0.92) and 0.82 (0.78, 0.85), respectively. Results were generally consistent for men and women and in a large number of sensitivity analyses.

Conclusions

Healthier eating patterns were associated with a significant reduction in the risk of all-cause mortality among Chinese oldest-old, lending support to the importance of life-long adherence to healthy diet into advanced old age.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12966-022-01280-6.

Toxic Effects of Thioacetamide-Induced Femoral Damage in New Zealand White Rabbits by Activating the p38/ERK Signaling Pathway

Thioacetamide (TAA) is widely used in the production of drugs, pesticides and dyeing auxiliaries. Moreover, it is a chemical that can cause liver damage and cancer. TAA has recently been identified to cause bone damage in animal models. However, the type of bone damage that TAA causes and its potential pathogenic mechanisms remain unclear. The toxic effects of TAA on the femurs of New Zealand white rabbits and the underlying toxicity mechanism were investigated in this study. Serum samples, the heart, liver, kidney and femurs were collected from rabbits after intraperitoneal injection of TAA for 5 months (100 and 200 mg/kg). The New Zealand white rabbits treated with TAA showed significant weight loss and femoral shortening. The activities of total bilirubin, total bile acid and gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase in the serum were increased following treatment with TAA. In addition, the cortical bone became thinner, and the trabecular thickness decreased significantly in TAA-treated rabbits, which was accompanied by significantly decreased mineral density of the cortical and trabecular bone. Moreover, there was a significant decrease in modulus of elasticity and maximum load on bone stress in TAA-treated rabbits. The western blotting results showed that the expression of phosphorylated (p)-p38 and p-ERK in femur tissues of rabbits were increased after TAA administration. Collectively, these results suggested that TAA may lead to femoral damage in rabbits by activating the p38/ERK signaling pathway.

Computational diffraction reveals long-range strains, distortions and disorder in molecular dynamics simulations of irradiated single crystals

Atomic-scale simulations, and in particular molecular dynamics (MD), are key assets to model the behavior of the structure of materials under the action of external stimuli, say temperature, strain or stress, irradiation, etc. Despite the widespread use of MD in condensed matter science, some basic material characteristics remain difficult to determine. This is, for instance, the case for the long-range strain tensor, and its root-mean-squared fluctuations, in disordered materials. In this work, computational diffraction is introduced as a fast and reliable structural characterization tool of atomic-scale simulation cells in the case of irradiated single crystals. In contrast to direct-space methods, computational diffraction operates in the reciprocal space and is therefore highly sensitive to long-range spatial correlations. With the example of irradiated UO2 single crystals, it is demonstrated that the normal strains, shear strains and rotations, as well as their root-mean-squared fluctuations (microstrain) and the atomic disorder, are straightforwardly and unambiguously determined. The methodology presented here has been developed with efficiency in mind, in order to be able to provide simple and reliable characterizations either operating in real time, in parallel with other analysis tools, or operating on very large data sets.

[The citation analysis of the articles published in Chinese Journal of Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery from 2009 to 2019]

Objective: To analyze the citation of articles in Chinese Journal of Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, and to explore the strategy for running scientific journals. Methods: Using the Citation Database of Chinese Biomedical Journals, the citations of articles in this journal from 2009 to 2019 were statistically analyzed, and the characteristics of highly cited articles were analyzed. Results: From 2009 to 2019, Chinese Journal of Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery published 2 814 papers. Cited papers accounted for 75.69% of all papers, and each paper was cited 7.24 times. The citation rate of published papers was consistent with the variation trend of citation frequency. Non treatises such as guide consensus and original articles for special issues were cited better. There was no obvious correlation between paper funding and citation. Conclusion: Improving the content quality and optimizing the column setting are important measures to enhance the influence of scientific journals.

Associations of Alcohol Dehydrogenase and Aldehyde Dehydrogenase Polymorphism With Cognitive Impairment Among the Oldest-Old in China

Recent literature suggested that ALDH2 mutation is associated with alcohol metabolism, and ethanol intake might jointly increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in mice. However, it is unclear whether this synergistic effect exists among humans. We examined the associations of four single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) and alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) genes (i.e., ALDH2 rs671, ADH1B rs1229984, ADH1B rs1042026, and ADH1C rs1693482) and cognitive impairment among the oldest-old. We also investigated whether this association was modified by ethanol intake from alcohol consumption. Data were from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey genetic sub-study, including 1,949 participants aged over 90 years. Participants with a Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score of < 18 were considered cognitively impaired. Alcohol consumption was categorized as heavy, moderate, or never drinkers. With the dominant model, carrying A allele on rs671, C allele on rs1229984, and T allele on rs1042026 was associated with 33% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 5%, 69%), 33% (95% CI: 2%, 75%), and 29% (95% CI: 3%, 62%) higher odds of cognitive impairment in the multivariable-adjusted logistic model, respectively. We did not observe a significant interaction between those SNPs and alcohol consumption. Among the oldest-old, carrying ALDH2 rs671 mutation was associated with higher odds of cognitive impairment independent of alcohol consumption.

Retinal microvascular changes in white matter hyperintensities investigated by swept source optical coherence tomography angiography

Backgro

To assess the microvascular changes in the macular region and the foveal avascular zone (FAZ) area in participants with white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) using swept source optical coherence tomography angiography (SS OCTA).

Methods

This cross-sectional study included a total of 23 WMH participants (45 eyes) and 20 age-matched healthy participants (40 eyes). SS OCTA (VG200; SVision Imaging, Ltd., Luoyang, China) was used to assess the retinal vessel density (VD) and the FAZ area. VD was measured in the superficial vascular plexus (SVP), intermediate capillary plexus (ICP) and deep capillary plexus (DCP) within a 6 × 6-mm scan centred on the macula using a 5-mm Macula circle. The FAZ area was automatically measured on the inner retina layer within a 3 × 3-mm scan in the macular region.

Results

There was no significant difference in VD in the SVP between the two groups. However, VD in both the ICP and DCP was significantly decreased in WMH participants (P = 0.028, P = 0.016). The FAZ area was significantly enlarged in WMH participants (P = 0.030). The signal quality was significantly lower in WMH participants (P < 0.001).

Conclusions

This study suggested that WMH participants have retinal microvascular and foveal avascular zone area changes compared with healthy controls. Further longitudinal studies with larger sample sizes are warranted to identify the value of our findings in the early evaluation of WMHs.

Association between indoor ventilation frequency and cognitive function among community-dwelling older adults in China: results from the Chinese longitudinal healthy longevity survey

Backgrounds

Emerging evidence suggested that indoor air pollution caused long-term adverse effects on cognitive function among older adults who spend more than 85% of their time indoors. Although high indoor ventilation can mitigate the effect of indoor air pollution on cognition among the younger population, limited evidence revealed the association between indoor ventilation and cognition among older adults.

Methods

A total of 11,853 participants aged 65 and over (female, 54.5%; mean age, 83.6 years) were included from the 2017–2018 wave of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS). Indoor ventilation frequency was measured by the self-reported frequency of opening windows per week in each season. Cognitive function was evaluated by the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Multivariate Poisson regression with robust error variance was applied to assess the association between overall indoor ventilation frequency and cognitive function. We fitted in two adjusted models: Model 1 was adjusted for demographic; model 2 was further adjusted for lifestyle, socioeconomic status, health conditions, and environmental factors. The same models were also applied to measure the association between seasonal indoor ventilation frequency and cognitive function.

Results

Of 11,853 older adults, 3035 (25.6%) had cognitive impairment. A high overall indoor ventilation frequency (indoor ventilation frequency: 6–8) was significantly associated with a 9% lower likelihood of cognitive impairment than low overall indoor ventilation frequency (indoor ventilation frequency: 0–3) among Chinese older adults [Relative risk (RR): 0.91, 95% Confidential Interval (CI): 0.83–0.99] in the full adjusted model. In the subgroup analysis in four seasons, high and intermediate indoor ventilation frequency in winter were significantly associated with 8% (RR: 0.92; 95%CI: 0.86–0.99) and 16% (RR: 0.84; 95%CI: 0.78–0.90) lower probability of cognitive impairment than low indoor ventilation frequency in the fully adjusted model among Chinese older adults, respectively.

Conclusions

In this nationally representative cohort, a higher frequency of house ventilation by opening windows was significantly associated with a lower risk of cognitive impairment among Chinese older adults aged 65 and over. These results offered robust evidence for policymaking and health intervention to prevent older adults from cognitive impairment or dementia in developing regions.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12877-022-02805-1.

The relationship between serum 25-hydroxyvitamin-D level and sweat function in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

AIMS

The objective of this study is to explore the relationship between serum 25-hydroxyvitamin-D(25-(OH)₂D₃) level and sweat function in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).

METHODS

A cross-sectional study of 1021 patients with T2DM who underwent 25-(OH)₂D₃ level detections and sweat function tests was carried out. These individuals were divided into deficient groups (n = 154 cases), insufficient groups (n = 593 cases) and sufficient groups (n = 274 cases). Spearman correlation analysis and multivariate stepwise linear regression analysis were implemented to determine the association of 25-(OH)2D3 level and sweat function.

RESULTS

The total presence of sweating dysfunction was 38.59%. Patients with a lower level of serum 25-(OH)₂D₃ had more severe sweat secretion impairment (P < 0.05). As the decrease of serum 25-(OH)₂D₃ level, the presence of sweating dysfunction increased (P < 0.05). 25-(OH)₂D₃ level was positively correlated with sweat function parameters, age and duration of T2DM were negatively correlated with sweat function parameter (P < 0.05). Multivariate stepwise linear regression analysis explored a significant association between serum 25-(OH)₂D₃ level with sweat function (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Serum 25-(OH)₂D₃ level was positively correlated with sweat function in patients with T2DM.

A Machine Learning-Based Aging Measure Among Middle-Aged and Older Chinese Adults: The China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study

Objective: Biological age (BA) has been accepted as a more accurate proxy of aging than chronological age (CA). This study aimed to use machine learning (ML) algorithms to estimate BA in the Chinese population. Materials and methods: We used data from 9,771 middle-aged and older Chinese adults (≥45 years) in the 2011/2012 wave of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study and followed until 2018. We used several ML algorithms (e.g., Gradient Boosting Regressor, Random Forest, CatBoost Regressor, and Support Vector Machine) to develop new measures of biological aging (ML-BAs) based on physiological biomarkers. R-squared value and mean absolute error (MAE) were used to determine the optimal performance of these ML-BAs. We used logistic regression models to examine the associations of the best ML-BA and a conventional aging measure-Klemera and Doubal method-BA (KDM-BA) we previously developed-with physical disability and mortality, respectively. Results: The Gradient Boosting Regression model performed the best, resulting in an ML-BA with an R-squared value of 0.270 and an MAE of 6.519. This ML-BA was significantly associated with disability in basic activities of daily living, instrumental activities of daily living, lower extremity mobility, and upper extremity mobility, and mortality, with odds ratios ranging from 1 to 7% (per 1-year increment in ML-BA, all P < 0.001), independent of CA. These associations were generally comparable to that of KDM-BA. Conclusion: This study provides a valid ML-based measure of biological aging for middle-aged and older Chinese adults. These findings support the application of ML in geroscience research and may help facilitate preventive and geroprotector intervention studies.

Interaction of greenness and polygenic risk score of Alzheimer's disease on risk of cognitive impairment

Studies have shown contact with nature has positive psychological, neurological, and cognitive benefits. Whether the built environment can affect genetic predisposition of Alzheimer's disease (AD) should be explored. We aimed to examine whether greenness around the residential environment can modify the effect of genetic AD risk on cognitive function. We used a genetic sub-study of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey including 1199 older adults (mean age: 100.3 ± 3.4 years) aged 90 years old or older. We used Polygenic Risk Score (PRS) to quantify the genetic AD risk and two types of measurements based on Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to access the residential greenness (contemporaneous and annual average NDVI). Contemporaneous NDVI values were the NDVI value collected at the corresponding survey, and the annual average NDVI was the average value of NDVI during the year before the corresponding survey. We defined cognitive impairment as having a Mini-Mental State Examination score below 25. In the multivariable logistics regression models, contemporaneous NDVI and genetic AD risk were associated with cognitive impairment. Among those with low genetic AD risk, the risk of cognitive impairment was lower in those living around higher greenness (contemporaneous NDVI OR: 0.55, 95% CI: [0.34, 0.86]; P_interaction: 0.071; annual average NDVI OR: 0.49, 95% CI: [0.31, 0.79]; P_interaction: 0.040). We did not observe significant associations between greenness and cognitive impairment among those with high genetic AD risk. Prevention efforts using PRS warrant a higher granularity of environmental exposures and biological etiology data.

Silencing IKBKE inhibits the migration and invasion of glioblastoma by promoting Snail1 degradation

PURPOSE

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is one of the most common malignant brain tumors in adults and has high mortality and relapse rates. Over the past few years, great advances have been made in the diagnosis and treatment of GBM, but unfortunately, the five-year overall survival rate of GBM patients is approximately 5.1%. Inhibitor of nuclear factor kappa-B kinase subunit epsilon (IKBKE) is a major oncogenic protein in tumors and can promote evil development of GBM. Snail1, a key inducer of the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) transcription factor, is subjected to ubiquitination and degradation, but the mechanism by which Snail1 is stabilized in tumors remains unclear. Our study aimed to investigate the mechanism of IKBKE regulating Snail1 in GBM.

METHODS

First, we analyzed the correlation between the expression of IKBKE and the tumor grade and prognosis through public databases and laboratory specimen libraries. Second, immunohistochemistry (IHC) and western blot were used to detect the correlation between IKBKE and Snail expression in glioma samples and cell lines. Western blot and immunofluorescence (IF) experiments were used to detect the quality and distribution of IKBKE and Snail1 proteins. Third, In situ animal model of intracranial glioma to detect the regulatory effect of IKBKE on intracranial tumors.

RESULTS

In this study, Our study reveals a new connection between IKBKE and Snail1, where IKBKE can directly bind to Snail1, translocate Snail1 into the nucleus from the cytoplasm. Downregulation of IKBKE results in Snail1 destabilization and impairs the tumor cell migration and invasion capabilities.

CONCLUSION

Our studies suggest that the IKBKE-Snail1 axis may serve as a potential therapeutic target for GBM treatment.

Artemisia ordosica Polysaccharide Alleviated Lipopolysaccharide-induced Oxidative Stress of Broilers via Nrf2/Keap1 and TLR4/NF-κB Pathway

Artemisia ordosica is one of the main shrubby perennials belonging to Artemisia species of Asteraceae and could be used in folk Chinese/Mongolian medicine to treat symptoms of various inflammatory ailments. The present study was conducted to investigate the protective effects of dietary Artemisia ordosica polysaccharide (AOP) against lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced oxidative stress in broilers via Nrf2/Keap1 and TLR4/NF-κB pathway. A total of 192 1-day-old Arbor Acres male broilers were randomly allotted to four treatments with 6 replicates (n = 8): (1) CON group, non-challenged broilers fed basal diet; (2) LPS group, LPS-challenged broilers fed basal diet; (3) AOP group, non-challenged broilers fed basal diet supplemented with 750 mg/kg AOP; (4) LPS+AOP group, LPS-challenged broilers fed basal diet supplemented with 750 mg/kg AOP. The trial included starter phase (d 1-14), stress period Ⅰ (d 15-21), convalescence Ⅰ (d 22-28), stress period Ⅱ (d 29-35) and convalescence Ⅱ (d 36-42). During stress period Ⅰ (on d 15, 17, 19 and 21) and stress period Ⅱ (on d 29, 31, 33 and 35), broilers were injected intra-abdominally either with LPS solution or with an equal amount of sterile saline. The results showed that dietary AOP supplementation alleviated LPS-induced reduction in antioxidant enzyme activity and excessive production of ROS, 8-OHdG and PC in serum of broilers challenged with LPS. Moreover, dietary AOP supplementation alleviated the decrease of T-AOC and activities of SOD, CAT and GPx in liver of broilers challenged with LPS by increasing expression of Nrf2, and inhibiting over-expression of Keap1 both at gene and protein level. Additionally, dietary AOP supplementation decreased the over-production of IL-1β and IL-6 in liver of broilers challenged by LPS through decreasing mRNA expression of TLR4, MyD88, NF-κB P65, IL-1β and IL-6, and alleviating the increase of protein expression of TLR4, IKKβ, NF-κB P65, IL-1β, IL-6, and the decrease of protein expression of IkBα. In conclusion, dietary AOP supplementation could alleviate LPS-induced oxidative stress through Nrf2/Keap1 and TLR4/NF-κB pathway.

Cognitive impairment and all-cause mortality among Chinese adults aged 80 years or older

OBJECTIVES

The oldest-old (aged ≥80 years) are the fastest growing population segment and age is related to cognitive impairment. We aimed to estimate the association between cognitive impairment and all-cause mortality, in addition to the relationship with different cognitive subdomains among the oldest-old in China.

METHODS

We analyzed 25,285 participants recruited from 22 out of 30 provinces in the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) from 1998 to 2008, with mortality follow-up until 2014. Cognitive function was measured by the Chinese-version 30-item Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), classified as no (MMSE score: 25-30), mild (18-24), moderate (10-17), and severe (0-9) impairment. We used time-dependent Cox model to evaluate the relationship between time-varying cognition and mortality.

RESULTS

The relationship between cognition and mortality showed a dose-response pattern among the overall population. Compared to those with no impairment, participants with moderate (HR = 1.41, 95% CI 1.28-1.56) and severe (HR = 1.77, 95% CI 1.59-1.96) cognitive impairment showed increased mortality risk. Impairment in the subdomain of orientation was independently associated with increased mortality risk (HR = 1.20, 95% CI 1.05-1.36) among participants without overall cognitive impairment. Urban and rural residents had similar mortality risk.

CONCLUSIONS

A consistent dose-response pattern existed between cognitive impairment and all-cause mortality. Orientation was associated with mortality in the population without cognitive impairment. Similar mortality regardless of residence areas indicated scarce health care and treatment for cognitive impairment in China from 1998 to 2014.

Three Novel Structural Variations at MHC and IL12B Predisposing to Psoriasis

BACKGROUND

Structural variations (SVs, defined as DNA variants ≥50 bp) have been associated with various complex human diseases. However, research to screen the whole genome for SVs predisposing to psoriasis is still lacking.

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to investigate the association of SVs and psoriasis.

METHODS

We performed a genome-wide screen on SVs using an imputation method on 5 independent cohorts with 45,386 subjects from the Chinese Han population. Fine mapping analysis, genetic interaction analysis and RNA expression analysis were conducted to explore the mechanism of SVs.

RESULTS

We obtained 4,535 SVs in total and identified 2 novel deletions (esv3608550, OR=2.73, P<2.00×10^-308 ; esv3608542, OR=0.47, P=7.40×10^-28 ) at 6q21.33 (MHC), 1 novel Alu element insertion (esv3607339, OR=1.22, P=1.18×10^-35 ) at 5q33.3 (IL12B), and confirmed 1 previously reported deletion (esv3587563, OR=1.30, P=9.52×10^-60 ) at 1q21.2 (LCE) for psoriasis. Fine mapping analysis including SNPs and small Insertions/Deletions (InDels) revealed that esv3608550 and esv3608542 were independently associated with psoriasis, and a novel independent SNP (rs9378188, OR=1.65, P=3.46×10^-38 ) was identified at 6q21.33. By genetic interaction analysis and RNA expression analysis, we speculate that the association of 2 deletions at 6q21.33 with psoriasis might relate to their influence on the expression of HLA-C.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study constructed the most comprehensive SV map for psoriasis thus far and enriched the genetic architecture and pathogenesis of psoriasis as well as highlighted the nonnegligible impact of SVs on complex diseases.

[Role of Bruton's tyrosine kinase in endotoxin/lipopolysaccharide-induced pyroptosis of intestinal cells in scalded mice]

Objective: To investigate the role of Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) in pyroptosis of intestinal cells caused by endotoxin/lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in scalded mice. Methods: The experimental research method was applied. One hundred and twenty-eight male C57BL/6 mice aged 6-8 weeks were divided into sham injury group, scald alone group, scald+LPS group, scald+LPS+3 mg/kg LFM-A13 group, scald+LPS+10 mg/kg LFM-A13 group, and scald+LPS+30 mg/kg LFM-A13 group. There were 8 mice in sham injury group, and there were 24 mice in the other 5 groups, respectively. Mice in 5 scald groups were inflicted with 10% total body surface area full-thickness scald on the back, and mice in sham injury group were sham injured on the back. At post injury hour (PIH) 0 (immediately), mice in sham injury group and scald alone group were intraperitoneally injected with normal saline, mice in scald+LPS group were intraperitoneally injected with LPS, and mice in scald+LPS+3 mg/kg LFM-A13 group, scald+LPS+10 mg/kg LFM-A13 group, and scald+LPS+30 mg/kg LFM-A13 group were intraperitoneally injected with LPS and LFM-A13 in corresponding doses. Mice in sham injury group were sacrificed at PIH 0 to collect serum and intestinal tissue, and 8 mice in each group of 5 scald groups were sacrificed at PIH 0, 12, and 24 to collect intestinal tissue and serum at PIH 12. Immunohistochemistry was used to detect phosphorylation of BTK in intestinal tissue of mice. Western blotting was used to detect the protein expressions of phosphorylated BTK (p-BTK), cleaved cysteine aspartic acid specific protease 1 (caspase-1), and cleaved caspase-11 in intestinal tissue of mice. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay method was used to detect interleukin-1β (IL-1β) in serum and intestinal tissue of mice. Data were statistically analyzed with one-way analysis of variance and least significant difference test. Results: There was no obvious phosphorylation of BTK in intestinal tissue of mice in 6 groups at PIH 0 and scald alone group at PIH 12 and 24. Phosphorylation of BTK in intestinal tissue of mice in scald+LPS group at PIH 12 and 24 were obviously increased compared with those in scald alone group. Phosphorylation of BTK in intestinal tissue of mice in scald+LPS+3 mg/kg LFM-A13 group, scald+LPS+10 mg/kg LFM-A13 group, and scald+LPS+30 mg/kg LFM-A13 group were obviously decreased compared with those in scald+LPS group, and the degrees of decline gradually increased with increase of dose in LFM-A13. Compared with (0.130±0.010) of sham injury group and (0.120±0.040 and 0.110±0.040) of scald alone group, protein expressions of p-BTK in intestinal tissue of mice in scald+LPS group at PIH 12 and 24 were obviously increased (0.470±0.090 and 0.430±0.080, P<0.01). Compared with those in scald+LPS group, protein expressions of p-BTK in intestinal tissue of mice in scald+LPS+3 mg/kg LFM-A13 group at PIH 24, and scald+LPS+10 mg/kg LFM-A13 group and scald+LPS+30 mg/kg LFM-A13 group at PIH 12 and 24 were obviously decreased (0.280±0.060, 0.300±0.120, 0.150±0.050, 0.280±0.090, 0.140±0.040, P<0.05 or P<0.01). Compared with those in scald+LPS+3 mg/kg LFM-A13 group, protein expressions of p-BTK in intestinal tissue of mice in scald+LPS+10 mg/kg LFM-A13 group and scald+LPS+30 mg/kg LFM-A13 group at PIH 24 were obviously decreased (P<0.01). Compared with those in sham injury group and scald alone group, protein expressions of cleaved caspase-1 and caspase-11 in intestinal tissue of mice in scald+LPS group were obviously increased at PIH 12 and 24 (P<0.01). Compared with those in scald+LPS group, protein expressions of cleaved caspase-1 at PIH 12 and cleaved caspase-11 at PIH 12 and 24 in intestinal tissue of mice in scald+LPS+3 mg/kg LFM-A13 group and protein expressions of cleaved caspase-1 and caspase-11 in intestinal tissue of mice in scald+LPS+10 mg/kg LFM-A13 group and scald+LPS+30 mg/kg LFM-A13 group at PIH 12 and 24 were obviously decreased (P<0.01). Compared with those in scald+LPS+3 mg/kg LFM-A13 group, protein expressions of cleaved caspase-1 and caspase-11 in intestinal tissue of mice in scald+LPS+10 mg/kg LFM-A13 group and scald+LPS+30 mg/kg LFM-A13 group at PIH 12 and 24 were obviously decreased (P<0.05 or P<0.01). At PIH 12, content of IL-1β in intestinal tissue and serum of mice in scald+LPS group were obviously higher than those in sham injury group and scald alone group (P<0.01), and content of IL-1β in intestinal tissue and serum of mice in scald+LPS+30 mg/kg LFM-A13 group were obviously lower than those in scald+LPS group (P<0.01). Conclusions: Phosphorylation of BTK is related to increases of cleaved caspase-1 and caspase-11 in intestinal tissue, and IL-1β content in intestinal tissue and serum of scalded septic mice caused by LPS. Phosphorylation of BTK mediates intestinal cell pyroptosis of scalded mice caused by LPS. Inhibiting phosphorylation of BTK can alleviate intestinal cell pyroptosis of scalded mice, with protective effect on intestinal injury intestine.

HeTDR: Drug repositioning based on heterogeneous networks and text mining

Using existing knowledge to carry out drug-disease associations prediction is a vital method for drug repositioning. However, effectively fusing the biomedical text and biological network information is one of the great challenges for most current drug repositioning methods. In this study, we propose a drug repositioning method based on heterogeneous networks and text mining (HeTDR). This model can combine drug features from multiple drug-related networks, disease features from biomedical corpora with the known drug-disease associations network to predict the correlation scores between drug and disease. Experiments demonstrate that HeTDR has excellent performance that is superior to that of state-of-the-art models. We present the top 10 novel HeTDR-predicted approved drugs for five diseases and prove our model is capable of discovering potential candidate drugs for disease indications.

•

We developed a novel DL-based method for drug repositioning (HeTDR)

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HeTDR succeeds in fusing networks topology information and text mining information

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HeTDR obtains high accuracy, excessing most state-of-the-art models

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HeTDR could represent an algorithm integrating multiple sources of information

Traditional drug discovery and development are often time consuming and high risk. Drug repositioning aims to expand existing indications or discover new targets by studying the approved drug compounds, thereby reducing the time, costs, and risk of drug development. We propose a novel method in drug repositioning based on heterogeneous networks and text mining (HeTDR), which combines drugs features from multiple networks and diseases features from biomedical corpora to predict the correlation scores between drugs and diseases. This prediction model has provided a potential solution for multiple information fusion and to exhibit accurate performance leading to the discovery of new drugs for indications. This algorithm could contribute a new idea to the acceleration and development of future drug repositioning by using computational methods and provide computer-aided guidance for biologists in clinical settings.

[Characteristics and recovery of hearing loss in 573 patients with bacterial meningitis]

Objective: To analyze the characteristics and prognosis of hearing loss in children with bacterial meningitis. Methods: This was a single-center retrospective cohort study. Patients diagnosed with bacterial meningitis who were hospitalized in Beijing Children's Hospital between 2010 and 2016 and older than 28 days and younger than 18 years at symptom onset were included in this study (n=573). All clinical information including hearing assessment results during hospitalization were reviewed. All patients with hearing loss were followed up to repeat their hearing test and assess their hearing condition with parents' evaluation of aural and (or) oral performance of children (PEACH). Patients were grouped according to their hearing assessment results, and Logistic regression analysis was used to analyze the risk factors for hearing loss in patients with bacterial meningitis. Results: Five hundred and seventy-three patients were enrolled in this study, including 347 males and 226 females. The onset age ranged from 29 days to 15.8 years. Two hundred and forty-six patients had identified causative pathogens, among whom 92 cases (37.4%) were pneumococcal meningitis cases. Hearing loss was found in 160 cases (27.9%) during hospitalization, involving 240 ears. Permanent hearing loss was found in 20 cases (16.9%), involving 32 ears. In the patients with permanent hearing loss, 87.5% (28/32) of ears were identified as severe or profound hearing loss during hospitalization. Logistic regression analysis showed that dystonia, the protein concentration level in cerebrospinal fluid>1 g/L, glucose concentration level lower than 1 mmol/L and subdural effusion were independent risk factors for hearing loss (OR=2.426 (1.450-4.059), 1.865 (1.186-2.932), 1.544 (1.002-2.381) and 1.904 (1.291-2.809)). Conclusions: Hearing loss is a common sequela of bacterial meningitis in children. Most patients have transient hearing loss, but patients with severe or profound hearing impairment have a higher risk of developing permanent hearing loss.

Apolipoprotein E Genotype, Meat, Fish, and Egg Intake in Relation to Mortality Among Older Adults: A Longitudinal Analysis in China

Introduction: The interactions between apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype and diet pattern changes were found significant in several trials, implying that APOE gene may modify the effect of animal protein-rich food on health outcomes. We aim to study the interaction of APOE genotype with the effect of meat, fish and egg intake on mortality.

Methods: This population-based study enrolled 8,506 older adults (mean age: 81.7 years, 52.3% female) from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Study. The intake frequency of meat, fish and egg was assessed by 3-point questions at baseline. Cox regression was conducted to calculate the hazard ratios for all-cause mortality of intake levels of meat, fish and egg. The analyses were stratified by APOE genotype and sex. The analyses were performed in 2020.

Results: In the multivariable-adjusted models, meat and fish intake was associated with all-cause mortality (high vs. low intake: meat: HR: 1.14, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.28; fish: HR: 0.83, 95% CI: 0.73, 0.95). APOE genotype have significant interactions with meat and fish intake (Ps < 0.05). Compared with low fish intake, high fish intake was associated with lower risk of mortality (HR: 0.74, 95% CI: 0.56–0.98) only among the APOE ε4 carriers. High meat intake was significantly associated with higher risks of mortality (HR: 1.13, 95% CI: 1.04–1.25) only among the APOE ε4 non-carriers. The interactive relationship was restricted among the male. No significant findings were observed between egg and mortality among carriers or non-carriers.

Conclusions: Among Chinese older adults, the significance of associations of mortality with reported meat or fish intake depended on APOE-E4 carriage status. If validated by other studies, our findings provide evidence for gene-based “precision” lifestyle recommendations.