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This study investigated the effects of ethanol, 1,2-propanediol, and glycerol on the structure and aggregation behavior of silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) myosin. All alcohols induced extensive alteration in the tertiary structure of myosin. Both ethanol and 1,2-propanediol further promoted an increase in the content of β-sheets in myosin and induced myosin aggregation. While glycerol had almost no impact on the secondary structure of myosin. Molecular dynamics simulations revealed that increasing the concentration of ethanol and 1,2-propanediol affected the overall structural changes in the myosin heavy chain (MHC), while glycerol exerted a more pronounced effect on the MHC tail when compared to the MHC head. Disruption of the hydration layers induced by ethanol and 1,2-propanediol contributed to local structural changes in myosin. Glycerol at a concentration of 20% induced the formation of a larger hydration layer around the MHC tail, which facilitated the stabilization of the protein structure., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

The purpose of the study was to illustrate the roles of three primary indexes, namely sunlight, ventilation and stirring, in the 'bask in sunlight and dewed at night' technique on the quality of shrimp paste, through a laboratory-scale design. The results showed that changes in the post-ripening fermentation conditions, especially sunlight, was instrumental in the physicochemical properties of the shrimp paste. E-nose and SPME-GC-MS were employed to assess the volatile flavor of post-ripening fermentation. A total of 29 key volatile aroma components played a crucial role in the development of post-ripening flavor in shrimp paste with or without sunlight. Lipidomic analysis revealed that sunlight promoted the oxidative degradation of FA, resulting in the production of a diverse range of flavor compounds that imparted the unique aroma of shrimp paste. The findings of this study will establish a theoretical basic for better control of the post-ripening fermentation of traditional shrimp paste., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Macrocycles play vital roles in supramolecular chemistry and chromatography. 1,1'-Bi-2-naphthol (BINOL)-based chiral polyimine macrocycles are an emerging class of chiral macrocycles that can be constructed by one-step aldehyde-amine condensation of BINOL derivatives with other building blocks. These macrocycles exhibit good characteristics, such as facile preparation, rigid cyclic structures, multiple chiral centers, and defined molecular cavities, that make them good candidates as new chiral recognition materials for chromatographic enantioseparations. In this study, a BINOL-based [2+2] chiral polyimine macrocycle was synthesized by one-step condensation of enantiopure (S)-2,2'-dihydroxy-[1,1'-binaphthalene]-3,3'-dicarboxaldehyde with (1R,2R)-1,2-diaminocyclohexane. The product was modified with 5-bromo-1-pentene and then attached to thiolated silica using click chemistry to construct a new chiral stationary phase (CSP). The enantioselectivity of the new CSP was explored by separating various racemates under normal phase (NP) and reversed phase (RP) high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Thirteen racemates and eight racemates were enantioseparated under the two separation modes, respectively, including chiral alcohols, phenols, esters, ketones, amines, and organic acids. Among them, nine racemates achieved baseline separation under NP-HPLC and seven racemates achieved baseline separation under RP-HPLC. High resolution separation was observed with benzoin (Rs = 5.10), epinephrine (Rs = 4.98), 3-benzyloxy-1,2-propanediol (Rs = 4.42), and 4,4'-dimethylbenzoin (Rs = 4.52) in NP-HPLC, and with 4-methylbenzhydrol (Rs = 4.72), benzoin ethyl ether (Rs = 3.79), 1-phenyl-1-pentanol (Rs = 3.68), and 1-(3-bromophenyl)ethanol (Rs = 3.60) in RP-HPLC. Interestingly, the CSP complemented Chiralcel OD-H, Chiralpak AD-H, and CYCLOBOND I 2000 RSP columns for resolution of these test racemates, separating several racemic compounds that could not be well separated by the three commercially available columns. The influences of injected sample amount on separation were also evaluated. It was found that the column exhibited excellent stability and reproducibility after hundreds of injections, and the relative standard deviations (n = 5) of the retention time and resolution were less than 0.49% and 0.69%, respectively. This study indicates that the BINOL-based chiral macrocycle has great potential for HPLC enantioseparation., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Gastric cancer (GC) is a complex and heterogeneous disease with significant phenotypic and genetic variation. Traditional classification systems rely mainly on the evaluation of clinical pathological features and conventional biomarkers and might not capture the diverse clinical processes of individual GCs. The latest discoveries in omics technologies such as next‑generation sequencing, proteomics and metabolomics have provided crucial insights into potential genetic alterations and biological events in GC. Clustering strategies for identifying subtypes of GC might offer new tools for improving GC treatment and clinical trial outcomes by enabling the development of therapies tailored to specific subtypes. However, the feasibility and therapeutic significance of implementing molecular classifications of GC in clinical practice need to addressed. The present review examines the current molecular classifications, delineates the prevailing landscape of clinically relevant molecular features, analyzes their correlations with traditional GC classifications, and discusses potential clinical applications.

Polymer-based scaffolds with different degradability have been investigated to screen the matrix whose degradation rate is more closely matched with the bone regeneration rate. However, these comparisons are inclined to be compromised by the animal individual differences. In this study, we constructed an integrated scaffold model comprising four parts with different degradability and bioactivity to achieve an in situ comparison of bone regeneration ability of different scaffolds. Slow-degradable polycaprolactone (PCL), fast-degradable poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA), and silica-coated PCL and PLGA scaffolds were assembled into a round sheet to form a hydroxyapatite (HA)-free integrated scaffold. HA-doped PCL, PLGA, and silica-coated PCL and PLGA scaffolds were assembled to create an HA-incorporated integrated scaffold. The in vivo experimental results demonstrated that the local acid microenvironment caused by the rapid degradation of PLGA interfered with the osteogenic process promoted by PCL-based scaffolds in defect areas implanted with HA-free integrated scaffolds. Since the incorporation of HA alleviated the acidic microenvironment to some extent, each scaffold in HA-incorporated scaffolds exhibited its expected bone regeneration capacity. Consequently, it is feasible to construct an integrated structure for comparing the osteogenic effects of various scaffolds in situ, when there is no mutual interference between the materials. The strategy presented in this study inspired the structure design of biomaterials to enable in situ comparison of bone regeneration capacity of scaffolds., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Muscle protein stability during freeze-thaw (F-T) cycles was investigated with tilapia cultured in recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) and traditional aquaculture in ponds (TAP). This study found that fatty acids (eg., palmitic acid) were enriched in TAP, while antioxidants (eg., glutathione) were enriched in RAS. Generally, proteins in the RAS group exhibited greater stability against denaturation during the F-T cycle, suggested by a less decrease in haem protein content (77% in RAS and 86% in TAP) and a less increase in surface hydrophobicity of sarcoplasmic protein (63% in RAS and 101% in TAP). There was no significant difference in oxidative stability of myofibrillar protein between the two groups. This study provides a theoretical guide for the quality control of tilapia cultured in RAS during frozen storage., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Metal organic cages (MOCs), as an emerging discrete supramolecular compounds, have received widespread attention in separation, biomedicine, gas capture, catalysis, and molecular recognition due to their porosity, adjustability and stability. Herein, we present a new chiral MOC Fe II 4 L 4 coated capillary column prepared for gas chromatographic (GC) separation of different types of organic compounds, including n-alkanes, n-alcohols, alkylbenzenes, isomers, especially for racemic compounds. There are 20 different kinds of racemates (e.g., alcohols, ethers, epoxides, esters, alkenes, and aldehydes) were well resolved on the Fe II 4 L 4 chiral column and a maximum resolution value for 1-phenyl-1-propanol reaches 6.17. The Fe II 4 L 4 coated column exhibited high column efficiency (3100 plates m -1 for n-dodecane) and good enantiomeric resolution complementary to that of a commercial β-DEX 120 column and the previously reported chiral MOC [Fe 4 L 6 ] (ClO 4 ) 8 coated column. The relative standard deviation (RSDs) of the peak area and retention time of glycidol and nitrotoluene were below 1.2 %. This study reveals that chiral MOCs have good application prospects in chromatographic separation., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Background: Traditional fish sauce products rely on relatively long fermentation time and high salt concentration, resulting in inconsistent quality and health risks. Branched-chain fatty acids (BCFAs) are associated with nutritional benefits and health-care effects, mainly derived from food fermentation. This study aimed to screen BCFAs-producing bacteria with high protease and aminotransferase activity as starter cultures for fish sauce fermentation., Results: The low-salt fish sauce products were obtained by co-fermentation with three chosen strains. Trichloroacetic acid (TCA)-soluble peptides and amino acid nitrogen concentrations were higher in the co-fermentation group (FH group). The organoleptic evaluation showed co-fermentation optimized flavor composition and endured with rich taste. The levels of BCFAs and branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) significantly increased by co-fermentation. Volatile metabolomics analysis indicated that BCFAs, branched-chain esters, and pyrazines were the key flavor compounds in the co-fermented group., Conclusion: The co-fermentation system with selected strains to ferment low-salt fish sauce has the potential to increase BCFA content and improve flavor and nutrition. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry., (© 2024 Society of Chemical Industry.)

Exploring nutritional therapies that manipulate tryptophan metabolism to activate AhR signaling represents a promising approach for mitigating chronic colitis. Arabinoxylan is a bioactive constituent abundant in wheat bran. Here, we comprehensively investigated anti-colitis potentials of wheat bran arabinoxylan (WBAX), its synbiotic and postbiotic derived from WBAX and Limosilactobacillus reuteri WX-94 (i.e., a probiotic strain exhibiting tryptophan metabolic activity). WBAX fueled L. reuteri and promoted microbial conversion of tryptophan to AhR ligands during in vitro fermentation in the culture medium and in the fecal microbiota from type 2 diabetes. The WBAX postbiotic outperformed WBAX and its synbiotic in augmenting efficacy of tryptophan in restoring DSS-disturbed serum immune markers, colonic tight junction proteins and gene profiles involved in amino acid metabolism and FoxO signaling. The WBAX postbiotic remodeled gut microbiota and superiorly enhanced AhR ligands (i.e., indole metabolites and bile acids), alongside with elevation in colonic AhR and IL-22. Associations between genera and metabolites modified by the postbiotic and colitis in human were verified and strong binding capacities between metabolites and colitis-related targets were demonstrated by molecular docking. Our study advances the novel perspective of WBAX in manipulating tryptophan metabolism and anti-colitis potentials of WBAX postbiotic via promoting gut microbiota-dependent AhR signaling., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Lin Shi reports financial support was provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Lin Shi reports financial support was provided by the Youth talent program in Shaanxi science and Technology Association. Lin Shi reports financial support was provided by Science and Technology Plan Project Approving in Xi'an. Lin Shi reports financial support was provided by Science and Technology Innovation Team of Shaanxi Province. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Gastric cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors worldwide and has a high mortality rate. However, tests for the early screening and diagnosis of gastric cancer are limited and invasive. Certain oral microorganisms are over-expressed in gastric cancer, but there is heterogeneity among different studies. Notably, each oral ecological niche harbors specific microorganisms. Among them, tongue coating, saliva, and dental plaque are important and unique ecological niches in the oral cavity. The colonization environment in different oral niches may be a source of heterogeneity. In this paper, we systematically discuss the latest developments in the field of the oral microbiota and gastric cancer and elucidate the enrichment of microorganisms in the oral ecological niches of the tongue coatings, saliva, and dental plaque in gastric cancer patients. The various potential mechanisms by which the oral microbiota induces gastric cancer (activation of an excessive inflammatory response; promotion of proliferation, migration, invasion, and metastasis; and secretion of carcinogens, leading to imbalance in gastric microbial communities) are explored. In this paper, we also highlight the applications of the rapeutics targeting the oral microbiota in gastric cancer and suggests future research directions related to the relationship between the oral microbiota and gastric cancer., Competing Interests: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)., (© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.)

Protein glutaminase (PG; EC 3.5.1.44) is a class of food-grade enzyme with the potential to significantly improve protein functionality. However, its low catalytic activity and stability greatly hindered industrial application. In this study, we employed structural-based engineering and computational-aided design strategies to target the engineering of protein glutaminase PG5, which led to the development of a combinatorial mutant, MT8, exhibiting a specific activity of 31.1 U/mg and a half-life of 216.2 min at 55 °C. The results indicated that the flexible region in MT8 shifted from the C-terminus to the N-terminus, with increased N-terminal flexibility positively correlating with its catalytic activity. Additionally, MT8 notably boosted fish myofibrillar proteins (MPs) solubility under the absence of NaCl conditions and enhanced their foaming and emulsifying properties. Key residues like Asp 31 , Ser 72 , Asn 121 , Asp 471 , and Glu 485 were crucial for maintaining PG5-myosin interaction, with Ser 72 and Asn 121 making significant energy contributions., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The lymph node is the most common site of distant metastasis of cervical squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC), which elicits dismal prognosis and limited efficiency for treatment. Elucidation of the mechanisms underlying CSCC lymphatic metastasis would provide potential therapeutic strategies for nodal metastatic of CSCC. Here, based on in vivo lymphatic metastasis screening model, a circular RNA is identified that is termed as lymph node metastasis associated circRNA (LNMAC), is markedly upregulated in lymphatic metastatic CSCC and correlated with lymph node metastasis. Overexpression of LNMAC dramatically augments the metastatic capability of CSCC cells to the lymph node via inducing lymphangiogenesis. Mechanistically, LNMAC epigenetically upregulates fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) expression by directly associating with histone acacetylase 1 (HDAC1), preventing Importin α6/8-mediated nuclear translocation of HDAC1 and eliciting histone H3K27ac-induced FGF2 transcriptional activation. Treatment with 3F12E7, an anti-FGF2 monoclonal antibody, effectively inhibits LNMAC-induced CSCC lymphatic metastasis. Taken together, these findings indicate that LNMAC plays a crucial role in FGF2-mediated lymphangiogenesis and lymphatic metastasis, highlighting that LNMAC might be a therapeutic target for lymph node metastasis in CSCC patients., (© 2024 The Author(s). Advanced Science published by Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

Previous studies have highlighted the toxicity of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in plants, yet understanding their spatial distribution within plant tissues and specific toxic effects remains limited. This study investigates the spatial-specific toxic effects of carbamazepine (CBZ), a prevalent PPCP, in plants. Utilizing desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry imaging (DESI-MSI), CBZ and its transformation products were observed predominantly at the leaf edges, with 2.3-fold higher concentrations than inner regions, which was confirmed by LC-MS. Transcriptomic and metabolic analyses revealed significant differences in gene expression and metabolite levels between the inner and outer leaf regions, emphasizing the spatial location's role in CBZ response. Notably, photosynthesis-related genes were markedly downregulated, and photosynthetic efficiency was reduced at leaf edges. Additionally, elevated oxidative stress at leaf edges was indicated by higher antioxidant enzyme activity, cell membrane impairment, and increased free fatty acids. Given the increased oxidative stress at the leaf margins, the study suggests using in situ Raman spectroscopy for early detection of CBZ-induced damage by monitoring reactive oxygen species levels. These findings provide crucial insights into the spatial toxicological mechanisms of CBZ in plants, forming a basis for future spatial toxicology research of PPCPs.

Background: A water-in-oil-in-water (W/O/W) double emulsion can simultaneously load hydrophilic and hydrophobic substances due to its unique two-membrane, three-phase structure. However, thermodynamic instability greatly limits the application of double emulsions in food processing. Further development of Pickering emulsions based on proteins, etc., can improve the stability and loading capacity. It is of great significance to promote their practical application., Results: Herein, we prepared ultrasound pretreatment complex glycation-modified phycocyanin (UMPC) to stabilize a W/O/W Pickering emulsion for the codelivery of vitamin B12 (VB12) and vitamin E (VE). First, an inner water phase and oil phase containing polyglycerin polyricinoleate were homogenized to prepare a W/O emulsion. Subsequently, the W/O emulsion was homogenized with an outer water phase containing UMPC to obtain a W/O/W Pickering emulsion. A gel-like inner phase emulsion with excellent storage and thermal stabilities was obtained under the condition that the W/O emulsion volume ratio was 80% and the UMPC was stabilized by 10 g kg -1 . The double emulsion after loading VB12 and VE showed good encapsulation effect during the storage period, the encapsulation rate could reach more than 90%, it also showed excellent protection effect under long-time storage and UV irradiation and the retention rate increased by more than 65%. In addition, the bioavailability of VB12 and VE significantly increased during simulated gastrointestinal digestion and reached 46.02% and 52.43%, respectively., Conclusion: These results indicate that the UMPC-stabilized W/O/W Pickering emulsion is an effective carrier for the codelivery of hydrophilic and hydrophobic bioactive molecules and also provides a means for useful exploration of an efficient and stable emulsion system stabilized by biological macromolecules. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry., (© 2024 Society of Chemical Industry.)

Chiral multi-resonance thermally activated delayed fluorescence (CP-MR-TADF) materials hold promise for circularly polarized organic light-emitting diodes (CP-OLEDs) and 3D displays. Herein, we present two pairs of tetraborated intrinsically axial CP-MR-TADF materials, R/S-BDBF-BOH and R/S-BDBT-BOH, with conjugation-extended bidibenzo[b,d]furan and bidibenzo[b,d]thiophene as chiral sources, which effectively participate in the distribution of the frontier molecular orbitals. Due to the heavy-atom effect, sulfur atoms are introduced to accelerate the reverse intersystem crossing process and increase the efficiency of molecules. R/S-BDBF-BOH and R/S-BDBT-BOH manifest ultra-pure blue emission with a maximum at 458/459 nm with a full width at half maximum of 27 nm, photoluminescence quantum yields of 90 %/91 %, and dissymmetry factors (|g PL |) of 6.8×10 -4 /8.5×10 -4 , respectively. Correspondingly, the CP-OLEDs exhibit good performances with an external quantum efficiency of 30.1 % and |g EL | factors of 1.2×10 -3 ., (© 2024 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

Background: The possibility of creating an arteriovenous fistula (AVF) depends on the existence of an arterial-venous network that is in good condition, defined by the size and elasticity of the blood vessels. The knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) toward vascular protection play a crucial role in preserving the vascular network for patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), it is observed that there is a significant lack of tools to measure these variables. Thus, the aim of this study is to develop and validate a scale to assess KAP regarding vascular protection anticipatory to the creation of an arteriovenous fistula (the KAP-VPAC-AVF Scale)., Methods: Initial item development was guided by a literature review and clinical experience, after which the items were improved and perfected through the Delphi process. The content of the scale was judged by an expert panel for content validity. In a convenience sample of 551 patients with ESRD, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were conducted to examine the instrument's factor structure., Results: The KAP-VPAC-AVF Scale encompasses 11 items distributed over three factors: knowledge, attitude, and practice, demonstrated excellent internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.917) and construct validity, as confirmed by CFA with satisfactory fit indices (χ 2 / df  = 2.394, RMSEA = 0.075, RMR = 0.049, CFI = 0.969, GFI = 0.936, AGFI = 0.892, TLI = 0.957, IFI = 0.970)., Conclusion: The KAP-VPAC-AVF Scale is a scientific and effective assessment tool that can evaluate the KAP of ESRD patients regarding measures to preserve the vascular network., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Background: The modification of N6-methyladenosine (m6A) plays a pivotal role in tumor by altering both innate and adaptive immune systems through various pathways, including the regulation of messenger RNA. The YTH domain protein family, acting as "readers" of m6A modifications, affects RNA splicing, stability, and immunogenicity, thereby playing essential roles in immune regulation and antitumor immunity. Despite their significance, the impact of the YTH domain protein family on tumor initiation and progression, as well as their involvement in tumor immune regulation and therapy, remains underexplored and lacks comprehensive review., Conclusion: This review introduces the molecular characteristics of the YTH domain protein family and their physiological and pathological roles in biological behavior, emphasizing their mechanisms in regulating immune responses and antitumor immunity. Additionally, the review discusses the roles of the YTH domain protein family in immune-related diseases and tumor resistance, highlighting that abnormal expression or dysfunction of YTH proteins is closely linked to tumor resistance., Key Points: This review provides an in-depth understanding of the YTH domain protein family in immune regulation and antitumor immunity, suggesting new strategies and directions for immunotherapy of related diseases. These insights not only deepen our comprehension of m6A modifications and YTH protein functions but also pave the way for future research and clinical applications., (© 2024 The Author(s). Clinical and Translational Medicine published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Shanghai Institute of Clinical Bioinformatics.)

In this article, chiral covalent organic framework core-shell composite CCOF-TpPa-Py@SiO 2 was facilely synthesized by induction at room temperature. The CCOF-TpPa-Py@SiO 2 core-shell composite was used as a chiral stationary phase for the separation of the racemates by high-performance liquid chromatography, which exhibits good separation performance for chiral compounds including ketones, alcohols, esters, epoxides, carboxylic acids, amides, and amines. The effects of analyte injection mass on the enantioseparation were studied. The reproducibility and stability of the CCOF-TpPa-Py@SiO 2 chiral column were explored. The intra-day (n = 5), inter-day (n = 5), and inter-column (n = 3) relative standard deviations for the migration times and resolution of benzoin were 0.32%-0.54%, 0.45%-0.61%, and 1.21%-1.53%, respectively. In addition, the chiral separation ability of the CCOF-TpPa-Py@SiO 2 chiral column (column A) was compared with that of the MDI-β-CD-Modified COF@SiO 2 (column B) as well as a commercial chiral column (Chiralpak AD-H). The chiral recognition ability of column A is complementary to that of column B and AD-H column. The resolution mechanism of CCOF-TpPa-Py@SiO 2 stationary phase towards chiral analyte was explored. Hence, the synthesis of CCOF-TpPa-Py@SiO 2 core-shell composite by induction at room temperature as chiral stationary phases for chromatographic separation has important research potential and application prospects., (© 2024 Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

Background: The current pathologic N (pN) classification exhibits limitations in the prognostic stratification of patients with pT3-4N0-2M0 gastric cancer (GC). Therefore, this study aimed to develop and validate a new lymph nodal staging method based on the number of examined lymph nodes (ELNs) and lymph node ratio (LNR)., Methods: Data from 7883 patients with pT3-4N0-2M0 GC were collected from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database and Zhejiang Cancer Provincial Hospital. Optimal cutoff values for ELNs and LNR were determined using X-tile software. Kaplan-Meier methods, Log-rank tests, and Cox regression analyses were employed in this study. Patients were categorized into 3 new pN stages: new pN0 (pN0 with ELNs of >16), new pN1 (pN0 with ELNs of ≤16 or pN1-2 with LNR of ≤0.15), and new pN2 (pN1-2 with LNR of >0.15). The prognostic predictive power of both current and new pN staging was evaluated using the Akaike information criterion (AIC), Bayesian information criterion, concordance index (C-index), and receiver operating characteristic curve., Results: The new pN classification exhibited excellent performance in Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. After adjusting for confounding factors, the new pN staging emerged as an independent prognostic indicator in patients with GC. In the SEER cohort, the new pN staging demonstrated enhanced prognostic prediction accuracy over the American Joint Committee on Cancer pN staging (AIC: 75578.85 vs 75755.06; C-index: 0.642 vs 0.630; P < .001). Similar findings were validated in the Chinese cohort., Conclusion: This study developed and validated an improved pN classification for patients with pT3-4N0-2M0 GC. Surgeons should consider ELNs and LNR when assessing postoperative prognosis in patients with GC., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Introduction: Further clinical validation is required to determine whether transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) can replace opioids and be used in combination with remimazolam for sedation during gastrointestinal endoscopy., Methods: A total of 108 outpatients who underwent diagnostic gastrointestinal endoscopy were randomly divided into three groups: fentanyl plus remimazolam group (group C), TEAS plus remimazolam group (group E), and placebo-TEAS plus remimazolam group (group P). The assessments of patient satisfaction, physician satisfaction, and pain scale score during the examination constituted the primary endpoints of the study. The secondary endpoints were the time of recovery, recovery of normal behavioral function and discharge, incidence of adverse reactions, and dose of remimazolam., Results: Compared with group C, group E had a greater median score for patient satisfaction at follow-up and a slightly lower median score for physician satisfaction. The pain score of group E was slightly greater than that of group C, but the difference was not significant. However, in group C, the incidence of hypoxemia, the rate of nausea and the severity of vertigo were greater, and the number of patients discharged and resuming normal behavioral function was greater than those in the other two groups. The dose of remimazolam in group C and group E was less than that in group P., Conclusions: TEAS combined with moderate sedation of remimazolam can provide an ideal sedative effect, which preferably suppresses discomfort caused by gastrointestinal endoscopy and has fewer sedation-related complications., Trial Registration: ID: NCT05485064; First registration (29/07/2022); Last registration (02/11/2022) (Clinical Trials.gov)., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Remembering what just happened is a crucial prerequisite to form long-term memories but also for establishing and maintaining working memory. So far there is no general agreement about cortical mechanisms that support short-term memory. Using a classifier-based decoding approach, we report that hippocampal activity during few sparsely distributed brief time intervals contains information about the previous sensory motor experience of rodents. These intervals are characterized by only a small increase of firing rate of only a few neurons. These low-rate predictive patterns are present in both working memory and non-working memory tasks, in two rodent species, rats and Mongolian gerbils, are strongly reduced for rats with medial entorhinal cortex lesions, and depend on the familiarity of the sensory-motor context., (© 2024 The Author(s). Hippocampus published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Persicaria capitata (Buch.-Ham. ex D. Don) H. Gross, a traditional Chinese medicinal plant, is often used to treat various urologic disorders in China. P. capitata extracts (PCE) have been used in combination with levofloxacin (LVFX) to treat urinary tract infections (UTIs) for a long time. However, little is known about the absorption of LVFX and transporter expression in the intestine after combined treatment with PCE, restricting the development and utilization of PCE. In view of this, a UPLC-MS/MS method was established for the determination of LVFX in intestinal sac fluid samples and in situ intestinal circulation perfusate samples to explore the effect of PCE on the intestinal absorption characteristics of LVFX ex vivo and in vivo. To further evaluate the interaction between LVFX and PCE, western blotting, immunohistochemistry, and RT-qPCR were utilized to determine the expression levels of drug transporters (OATP1A2, P-gp, BCRP, and MRP2) involved in the intestinal absorption of LVFX after combined treatment with PCE. Using the everted intestinal sac model, the absorption rate constant (K a ) and cumulative drug absorption (Q) of LVFX in each intestinal segment were significantly lower in groups treated with PCE than in the control group. K a at 2 h decreased most in the colon segment (from 0.088 to 0.016 µg/h·cm 2 ), and Q at 2 h decreased most in the duodenum (from 213.29 to 33.92 µg). Using the intestinal circulation perfusion model, the K a value and percentage absorption rate (A) of LVFX in the small intestine decreased significantly when PCE and LVFX were used in combination. These results showed that PCE had a strong inhibitory effect on the absorption of LVFX in the rat small intestine (ex vivo and in vivo intestinal segments). In addition, PCE increased the protein and mRNA expression levels of efflux transporters (P-gp, BCRP, and MRP2) and decreased the expression of the uptake transporter OATP1A2 significantly. The effects increased as the PCE concentration increased. These findings indicated that PCE changed the absorption characteristics of levofloxacin, possibly by affecting the expression of transporters in the small intestine. In addition to revealing a herb-drug interaction (HDI) between PCE and LVFX, these results provide a basis for further studies of their clinical efficacy and mechanism of action., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Circularly polarized organic light-emitting diodes (CP-OLEDs) hold significant promise for applications in 3D displays due to the ability to generate circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) directly. In this study, two pairs of circularly polarized thermally activated delayed fluorescence (CP-TADF) enantiomers, named RR/SS-ONCN and RS/SR-ONCN, were synthesized by integrating two distinct chiral groups into the dicyanobenzene unit. The RR/SS-ONCN and RS/SR-ONCN enantiomers show CPL properties with dissymmetry photoluminescence factors (|gPL|) of 1.3 × 10-3 and 2.0 × 10-3 in doped films, respectively. Notably, RR/SS-ONCN exhibit higher |gPL| values than that of RS/SR-ONCN, especially in doped films, indicating that when the configurations of the two chiral groups are identical, the |gPL| value of the CP-TADF materials can be enhanced, demonstrating a certain stacking effect. Moreover, the corresponding CP-OLEDs demonstrate good performances, achieving maximum external quantum efficiencies of up to 21.9% and notable CP electroluminescence with |gEL| factors of up to 1.0 × 10-3., (© 2024 Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) is a complex clinical syndrome with cardiac dysfunction, fluid retention and reduced exercise tolerance as the main manifestations. Current treatment of HFpEF is using combined medications of related comorbidities, there is an urgent need for a modest drug to treat HFpEF. Geniposide (GE), an iridoid glycoside extracted from Gardenia Jasminoides, has shown significant efficacy in the treatment of cardiovascular, digestive and central nervous system disorders. In this study we investigated the therapeutic effects of GE on HFpEF experimental models in vivo and in vitro. HFpEF was induced in mice by feeding with HFD and L-NAME (0.5 g/L) in drinking water for 8 weeks, meanwhile the mice were treated with GE (25, 50 mg/kg) every other day. Cardiac echocardiography and exhaustive exercise were performed, blood pressure was measured at the end of treatment, and heart tissue specimens were collected after the mice were euthanized. We showed that GE administration significantly ameliorated cardiac oxidative stress, inflammation, apoptosis, fibrosis and metabolic disturbances in the hearts of HFpEF mice. We demonstrated that GE promoted the transcriptional activation of Nrf2 by targeting MMP2 to affect upstream SIRT1 and downstream GSK3β, which in turn alleviated the oxidative stress in the hearts of HFpEF mice. In H9c2 cells and HL-1 cells, we showed that treatment with GE (1 μM) significantly alleviated H 2 O 2 -induced oxidative stress through the MMP2/SIRT1/GSK3β pathway. In summary, GE regulates cardiac oxidative stress via MMP2/SIRT1/GSK3β pathway and reduces cardiac inflammation, apoptosis, fibrosis and metabolic disorders as well as cardiac dysfunction in HFpEF. GE exerts anti-oxidative stress properties by binding to MMP2, inhibiting ROS generation in HFpEF through the SIRT1/Nrf2 signaling pathway. In addition, GE can also affect the inhibition of the downstream MMP2 target GSK3β, thereby suppressing the inflammatory and apoptotic responses in HFpEF. Taken together, GE alleviates oxidative stress/apoptosis/fibrosis and metabolic disorders as well as HFpEF through the MMP2/SIRT1/GSK3β signaling pathway., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Pharmacological Society.)

Introduction: The integration of self-attention mechanisms into Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) has garnered considerable interest in the realm of advanced deep learning, primarily due to their biological properties. Recent advancements in SNN architecture, such as Spikformer, have demonstrated promising outcomes. However, we observe that Spikformer may exhibit excessive energy consumption, potentially attributable to redundant channels and blocks., Methods: To mitigate this issue, we propose a one-shot Spiking Transformer Architecture Search method, namely Auto-Spikformer. Auto-Spikformer extends the search space to include both transformer architecture and SNN inner parameters. We train and search the supernet based on weight entanglement, evolutionary search, and the proposed Discrete Spiking Parameters Search (DSPS) methods. Benefiting from these methods, the performance of subnets with weights inherited from the supernet without even retraining is comparable to the original Spikformer. Moreover, we propose a new fitness function aiming to find a Pareto optimal combination balancing energy consumption and accuracy., Results and Discussion: Our experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of Auto-Spikformer, which outperforms the original Spikformer and most CNN or ViT models with even fewer parameters and lower energy consumption., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Che, Zhou, Niu, Ma, Fang, Chen, Shen, Yuan and Tian.)

To improve nutritional health, a low-salt (0.5 %) silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) surimi gel with α-tocopherol, soybean oil, and glyceryl monostearate oleogel was fabricated and evaluated for textural qualities, lipid oxidation, and in-vitro digestion analysis. Based on the texture profile analysis, gel strength, water holding capacity (WHC), rheological, protein secondary structure, and microstructural examination, 5 % oleogel addition to low-salt surimi exhibited similar physicochemical properties to regular-salt surimi gels. By crosslinking myosin and filling protein network voids, the oleogel increased surimi gel density. Increasing oleogel content improved the physicochemical qualities of heat-induced surimi, causing protein aggregation during digestion and reducing digestibility. The presence of oleogel altered protein secondary structure, reducing α-helix content and increasing β-sheet and other structures, enhancing WHC and gel strength of low salt surimi. Adding oleogel improved the antioxidant activity of digestive solutions. This study will help understand myosin-oleogel interaction and the development of sustainable and nutritious surimi-based foods., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Liver fibrosis can cause hepatitis B virus (HBV)-associated hepatocellular carcinoma. Menstrual blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MenSCs) can ameliorate liver fibrosis through paracrine. Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) may be used to explore the roadmap of activated hepatic stellate cell (aHSC) inactivation to target liver fibrosis. This study established HBV transgenic (HBV-Tg) mouse model of carbon tetrachloride (CCl 4 )-induced liver fibrosis and demonstrated that MenSCs migrated to the injured liver to improve serological indices and reduce fibrotic accumulation. RNA-bulk analysis revealed that MenSCs mediated extracellular matrix accumulation and cell adhesion. Liver parenchymal cells and nonparenchymal cells were identified by scRNA-seq in the control, CCl 4 , and MenSC groups, revealing the heterogeneity of fibroblasts/HSCs. A CellChat analysis revealed that diminished intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM) signaling is vital for MenSC therapy. Specifically, Icam1 in aHSCs acted on Itgal / Itgb2 and Itgam / Itgb2 in neutrophils, causing decreased adhesion. The expression of Itgal , Itgam , and Itgb2 was higher in CCl 4 group than in the control group and decreased after MenSC therapy in neutrophil clusters. The Lcn2 , Pglyrp1 , Wfdc21 , and Mmp8 had high expression and may be potential targets in neutrophils. This study highlights interacting cells, corresponding molecules, and underlying targets for MenSCs in treating HBV-associated liver fibrosis., Competing Interests: Hang Li, Li Yuan, Lu Chen, and Zhenyu Xu are employees of the Innovative Precision Medicine (IPM) Group. The other authors declare that they have no competing interests., (© 2024 The Author(s). MedComm published by Sichuan International Medical Exchange & Promotion Association (SCIMEA) and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.)

The effects of various contents of okra polysaccharide (OP) (0%-1%) on myofibrillar protein (MP) gelation and the interaction mechanism between OP and MP were investigated. OP improved the gelling properties of MP with an additive limitation of 0.75%. Rheological analysis demonstrated that the addition of OP enhanced the interactions between MPs, resulting in a denser intermolecular gel network structure. The addition of OP shifted the I 850 /I 830 of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, indicating that hydrogen bonds were formed between OP and MP. Adding OP promoted the transition from α-helix to β-sheet in the MP. OP exposed the hydrophobic groups of MPs and increased the number of hydrophobic interactions between them, favoring the formation of a dense gel network. Molecular docking predicted that hydrogen bonds were the main force involved in the binding of OP and MP. Moderate OP promoted the aggregation of MPs and improved their functional properties, facilitating heat-induced gelation., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2024 The Authors.)

Van der Waals heterostructures formed by stacked 2D materials show exceptional electronic, mechanical, and optical properties. Superlubricity, a condition where atomically flat, incommensurate planes of atoms result in ultra-low friction, is a prime example enabling, for example, self-assembly of optically visible graphene nanostructures in air via a sliding auto-kirigami process. Here, it is demonstrated that a subtle but ubiquitous adsorbate stripe structure found on graphene and graphitic surfaces in ambient conditions remains stable within the interface between twisted graphene layers as they slide over each other. Despite this contamination, the interface retains an exceptional superlubricious state with an estimated upper bound frictional shear strength of 10 kPa, indicating that direct atomic incommensurate contact is not required to achieve ambient superlubricity for 2D materials. The results suggest that any phenomena depending on 2D heterostructure interfaces such as exotic electronic behavior may need to consider the presence of stripe adsorbate structures that remain intercalated., (© 2024 The Author(s). Small published by Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

Gasdermin (GSDM) family proteins, known as the executors of pyroptosis, undergo protease-mediated cleavage before inducing pyroptosis. We here discovered a form of pyroptosis mediated by full-length (FL) GSDME without proteolytic cleavage. Intense ultraviolet-C irradiation-triggered DNA damage activates nuclear PARP1, leading to extensive formation of poly(ADP-ribose) (PAR) polymers. These PAR polymers are released to the cytoplasm, where they activate PARP5 to facilitate GSDME PARylation, resulting in a conformational change in GSDME that relieves autoinhibition. Moreover, ultraviolet-C irradiation promotes cytochrome c-catalysed cardiolipin peroxidation to elevate lipid reactive oxygen species, which is then sensed by PARylated GSDME, leading to oxidative oligomerization and plasma membrane targeting of FL-GSDME for perforation, eventually inducing pyroptosis. Reagents that concurrently stimulate PARylation and oxidation of FL-GSDME, synergistically promoting pyroptotic cell death. Overall, the present findings elucidate an unreported mechanism underlying the cleavage-independent function of GSDME in executing cell death, further enriching the paradigms and understanding of FL-GSDME-mediated pyroptosis., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

Circularly polarized organic light-emitting diodes (CP-OLEDs) hold great potential for naked-eye 3D displays, necessitating efficient chiral luminescent materials with an optimal CP luminescence (CPL) dissymmetry factor ( g ). Herein, we present the first chiral multiple resonance thermally activated delayed fluorescence (MR-TADF) materials containing a phosphorus chiral center by incorporating 5-phenylbenzo[ b ]phosphindole-5-oxide into the para -position of two MR-TADF cores. The compounds, NBOPO and NBNPO, exhibit photoluminescence peaks at 462 and 498 nm with narrow full-width at half-maximum values of 25 and 24 nm in toluene, respectively. Notably, ( R / S )-NBOPO and ( R / S )-NBNPO enantiomers display high quantum yields of 87% and 93% and symmetric CPL with | g PL | factors of 1.18 × 10 -3 and 4.30 × 10 -3 , respectively, in doped films. Moreover, the corresponding CP-OLEDs show impressive external quantum efficiencies of 16.4% and 28.3%, along with symmetric CP electroluminescence spectra with | g EL | values of 7.0 × 10 -4 and 1.4 × 10 -3 , respectively.

Abstract: Complete remission with partial hematological recovery (CRh) has been used as an efficacy endpoint in clinical trials of nonmyelosuppressive drugs for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). We conducted a pooled analysis to characterize the clinical outcomes for patients with AML who achieved CRh after treatment with ivosidenib, olutasidenib, enasidenib, or gilteritinib monotherapy in clinical trials used to support marketing applications. The study cohort included 841 adult patients treated at the recommended drug dosage; 64.6% were red blood cell or platelet transfusion dependent at study baseline. Correlations between disease response and outcomes were assessed by logistic regression modeling for categorical variables and by Cox proportional hazards modeling for time-to-event variables. Patients with CRh had a higher proportion with transfusion independence (TI) for at least 56 days (TI-56; 92.3% vs 22.3%; P < .0001) or TI for at least 112 days (TI-112; 63.5% vs 8.7%; P < .0001), a reduced risk over time for severe infection (hazard ratio [HR], 0.43; P = .0007) or severe bleeding (HR, 0.17; P = .01), and a longer overall survival (OS; HR, 0.31; P < .0001) than patients with no response. The effects were consistent across drugs. In comparison with patients with CR, the effect sizes for CRh were similar for TI-56 and for risk over time of infection or bleeding but less for TI-112 and OS. CRh is associated with clinical benefits consistent with clinically meaningful palliative effects for the treatment of AML with nonmyelosuppressive drugs, although less robustly than for CR.

Purpose: Given the unique features of the liver, it is necessary to combine immunotherapy with other therapies to improve its efficacy in patients of advanced cancer with liver metastases (LM). High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablation is now widely used in clinical practice and can enhanced immune benefits. The study is intended to prospectively evaluate the safety and clinical feasibility of HIFU ablation in combination with systemic immunotherapy for patients with liver metastases., Methods: The study enrolled 14 patients with LM who received ultrasound-guided HIFU ablation combined with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) such as anti-programmed cell death protein 1 (anti-PD-1 agents manufactured in China) at Mianyang Central Hospital. Patients were followed up for adverse events (AEs) during the trial, using the CommonTerminology Criteria for Adverse Events v5.0(CTCAE v5.0) as the standard. Tumour response after treatment was assessed using computerized tomography., Results: The 14 patients (age range, 35-84 years) underwent HIFU ablation at 19 metastatic sites and systemic immunotherapy. The mean lesion volume was 179.9 cm3 (maximum: 733.1 cm3). Median follow-up for this trial was 9 months (range: 3-21) months. The study is clinically feasible and acceptable to patients., Conclusion: This prospective study confirmed that HIFU combined with immunotherapy is clinically feasible and safe for treating liver metastases., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Yang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Although evidence-based interventions can reduce the incidence of central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI), there is a large gap between evidence-based interventions and the actual practice of central venous catheter (CVC) care. Evidence-based interventions are needed to reduce the incidence of CLABSI in intensive care units (ICU) in China. Professional association, guidelines, and database websites were searched for data relevant to CLABSI in the adult ICUs from inception to February 2020. Checklists were developed for both CVC placement and maintenance. Based on the Integrated Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services framework, a questionnaire collected the cognition and practice of ICU nursing and medical staff on the CLABSI evidence-based prevention guidelines. From January 2018 to December 2021, ICU CLABSI rates were collected monthly. Ten clinical guidelines were included after the screening and evaluation process and used to develop the best evidence-based protocols for CVC placement and maintenance. The CLABSI rates in 2018, 2019, and 2020 were 2.98‰ (9/3021), 1.83‰ (6/3276), and 1.69‰ (4/2364), respectively. Notably, the CLABSI rate in 2021 was 0.38‰ (1/2607). In other words, the ICU CLABSI rate decreased from 1.69‰ to 0.38‰ after implementation of the new protocols. Additionally, our data suggested that the use of ultrasound-guidance for catheter insertion, chlorhexidine body wash, and the use of a checklist for CVC placement and maintenance were important measures for reducing the CLABSI rate. The evidence-based processes developed for CVC placement and maintenance were effective at reducing the CLABSI rate in the ICU., Competing Interests: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2024 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)

Osteoinductive supplements without side effects stand out from the growth factors and drugs widely used in bone tissue engineering. Lithium magnesium sodium silicate hydrate (laponite) nanoflake is a promising bioactive component for bone regeneration, attributed to its inherent biosafety and effective osteoinductivity. Up to now, the in vivo osteogenic potential and mechanisms of laponite-encapsulated fibrous membranes remain largely unexplored. This study presents a unique method for homogeneously integrating high concentrations of laponite RDS into a polycaprolactone (PCL) matrix by dispersing laponite RDS sol into the polymer solution. Subsequently, a core-shell fibrous membrane (10RP-PG), embedding laponite-loaded PCL in its core, was crafted using coaxial electrospinning. The PCL core's slow degradation and the shell's gradient degradation enabled the sustained release of bioactive ions (Si and Mg) from laponite. In vivo studies on a critical-sized calvarial bone defect model demonstrated that the 10RP-PG membrane markedly enhanced bone formation and remodeling by accelerating the process of endochondral ossification. Further transcriptome analysis suggested that osteogenesis in the 10RP-PG membrane is driven by Mg and Si from endocytosed laponite, activating pathways related to ossification and endochondral ossification, including Hippo, Wnt and Notch. The fabricated nanocomposite fibrous membranes hold great promise in the fields of critical-sized bone defect repair., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press.)

A novel CCOF core-shell composite material (S)-DTP-COF@SiO 2 was prepared via asymmetric catalytic and in situ growth strategy. The prepared (S)-DTP-COF@SiO 2 was utilized as separation medium for HPLC enantioseparation using normal-phase and reversed-phase chromatographic modes, which displays excellent chiral separation performance for alcohols, esters, ketones, and epoxides, etc. Compared with chiral commercial chromatographic columns (Chiralpak AD-H and Chiralcel OD-H columns) and some previously reported chiral CCOF@SiO 2 (CC-MP CCTF@SiO 2 and MDI-β-CD-modified COF@SiO 2 )-packed columns, there are 4, 3, 13, and 15 tested racemic compounds that could not be resolved on the Chiralpak AD-H column, Chiralcel OD-H column, CC-MP CCTF@SiO 2 column, and MDI-β-CD-modified COF@SiO 2 column, respectively, which indicates that the resolution effect of (S)-DTP-COF@SiO 2 -packed column can be complementary to the other ones. The effects of the analyte mass, column temperature, and mobile phase composition on the enantiomeric separation were investigated. The chiral column exhibits good reproducibility after multiple consecutive injections. The RSDs (n = 5) of the peak area and retention time were less than 1.5% for repetitive separation of 2-methoxy-2-phenylethanol and 1-phenyl-1-pentanol. The chiral core-shell composite (S)-DTP-COF@SiO 2 exhibited good enantiomeric separation performance, which not only demonstrates its potential as a novel CSP material in HPLC but also expands the range of applications for chiral COFs., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature.)

Isoorientin (Iso) is a natural flavone with multiple activities. In the present study, the partial chemical properties and activities of Iso were improved by the nanoparticle loading technique. Zein/GA nanoparticles were successfully synthesized with the antisolvent precipitation method, and the structure and stability of the Zein/GA nanoparticles loaded with Iso (Zein/GA-Iso nanoparticles) were characterized by FTIR, UV-vis spectroscopy and zeta-sizer analysis. Results showed that Zein/GA-Iso nanoparticles possessed greater stability, light stability, hydrophilicity and antioxidant activity. Furthermore, Zein/GA-Iso nanoparticles exerted notable antibacterial activity against E. coli, S. aureus, and P. aeruginosa by destroying the permeability and integrity of cell membrane. On this basis, Zein/GA-Iso nanoparticles do have a bacteriostatic effect on pork. In conclusion, Zein/GA-Iso nanoparticles had better stability and pork preservation for applications in the food processing field as a new type of antiseptic and freshening agent., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2024 The Author(s).)

Background: Glioma is the most prevalent pediatric central nervous system malignancy. RAN, member RAS oncogene family (RAN), is a key signaling molecule that regulates the polymerization of microtubules during mitosis. RAN binding protein 2 (RANBP2) is involved in DNA replication, mitosis, metabolism, and tumorigenesis. The effects of RAN and RANBP2 gene polymorphisms on glioma susceptibility in Chinese children are currently unknown., Aims: This study aimed to evaluate the association between RAN and RANBP2 gene polymorphisms and glioma susceptibility in Chinese children., Methods and Results: We recruited 191 patients with glioma and 248 children without cancer for this case-control study. Polymerase chain reaction-based TaqMan was applied to gene sequencing and typing. Logistic regression model-calculated odds ratio and 95% confidence interval were used to verify whether the gene polymorphisms (RAN rs56109543 C>T, rs7132224 A>G, rs14035 C>T, and RANBP2 rs2462788 C>T) influence glioma susceptibility. Based on age, gender, tumor subtype, and clinical stage, stratified analyses of risk and protective genotypes were conducted. p values for mutant genotype analyses were all >0.05, indicating no significant correlation between these gene polymorphisms and glioma risk., Conclusion: RAN and RANBP2 gene polymorphisms were not found to be statistically significantly associated with glioma susceptibility in Chinese children. Other potential functional gene polymorphism loci of RAN and RANBP2 will need to be evaluated in the search for novel glioma biomarkers., (© 2024 The Author(s). Cancer Reports published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Chirality is a fundamental property of nature. Separation and analysis of racemates are of great importance in the fields of medicine and the production of chiral biopharmaceutical intermediates. Chiral chromatography has the characteristics of a wide separation range, fast separation speed, and high efficiency. The development and preparation of novel chiral stationary phases with good chiral recognition and separation capacity is the core and key of chiral chromatographic separation and analysis. In this work, the representative research progress of novel chiral porous crystal materials including chiral covalent organic frameworks, chiral porous organic cages, chiral metal-organic frameworks, and chiral metal-organic cages used as chiral stationary phases of capillary gas chromatography and high-performance liquid chromatography over the last 4 years is reviewed in detail. The chiral recognition and separation properties of the representative studies in this review are also introduced and discussed., (© 2024 Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

Radiology report generation (RRG) is crucial to save the valuable time of radiologists in drafting the report, therefore increasing their work efficiency. Compared to typical methods that directly transfer image captioning technologies to RRG, our approach incorporates organ-wise priors into the report generation. Specifically, in this paper, we propose Organ-aware Diagnosis (OaD) to generate diagnostic reports containing descriptions of each physiological organ. During training, we first develop a task distillation (TD) module to extract organ-level descriptions from reports. We then introduce an organ-aware report generation module that, for one thing, provides a specific description for each organ, and for another, simulates clinical situations to provide short descriptions for normal cases. Furthermore, we design an auto-balance mask loss to ensure balanced training for normal/abnormal descriptions and various organs simultaneously. Being intuitively reasonable and practically simple, our OaD outperforms SOTA alternatives by large margins on commonly used IU-Xray and MIMIC-CXR datasets, as evidenced by a 3.4% BLEU-1 improvement on MIMIC-CXR and 2.0% BLEU-2 improvement on IU-Xray.

Immune checkpoints are essential regulators of immune responses, either by activating or suppressing them. Consequently, they are regarded as pivotal elements in the management of infections, cancer, and autoimmune disorders. In recent years, researchers have identified numerous soluble immune checkpoints that are produced through various mechanisms and demonstrated biological activity. These soluble immune checkpoints can be produced and distributed in the bloodstream and various tissues, with their roles in immune response dysregulation and autoimmunity extensively documented. This review aims to provide a thorough overview of the generation of various soluble immune checkpoints, such as sPD-1, sCTLA-4, sTim-3, s4-1BB, sBTLA, sLAG-3, sCD200, and the B7 family, and their importance as indicators for the diagnosis and prediction of autoimmune conditions. Furthermore, the review will investigate the potential pathological mechanisms of soluble immune checkpoints in autoimmune diseases, emphasizing their association with autoimmune diseases development, prognosis, and treatment., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Parthenogenesis, the development of unfertilized egg cells into embryos, is a key component of apomixis. AtBBM (BABY BOOM), a crucial regulator of embryogenesis in Arabidopsis, possesses the capacity to shift nutritional growth toward reproductive growth. However, the mechanisms underlying AtBBM-induced parthenogenesis remain largely unexplored in dicot plants. Our findings revealed that in order to uphold the order of sexual reproduction, the embryo-specific promoter activity of AtBBM as well as repressors that inhibit its expression in egg cells combine to limiting its ability to induce parthenogenesis. Notably, AtRKD5, a RWP-RK domain-containing (RKD) transcription factor, binds to the 3' end of AtBBM and is identified as one of the inhibitory factors for AtBBM expression in the egg cell. In the atrkd5 mutant, we successfully achieved enhanced ectopic expression of AtBBM in egg cells, resulting in the generation of haploid offspring via parthenogenesis at a rate of 0.28%. Furthermore, by introducing chimeric Arabidopsis and rice BBM genes into the egg cell, we achieved a significant 4.6-fold enhancement in haploid induction through the atdmp8/9 mutant. These findings lay a strong foundation for further exploration of the BBM-mediated parthenogenesis mechanism and the improvement of haploid breeding efficiency mediated by the dmp8/9 mutant., (© 2024 Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences.)

In recent years, the concentrations of cadmium (Cd) and diclofenac (DCF) in water have frequently exceeded the standard; however, the toxic effects of these two pollutants on grass carp under single and combined exposure are unknown. In this study, the concentrations of pollutants in different tissues were detected, and the toxicities of the two pollutants to grass carp under different exposure conditions were compared based on growth traits, biochemical responses, gut microbiome, and transcriptomes. Based on these findings, the brain showed the lowest levels of Cd and DCF accumulation. Oxidative stress and pathological damage were observed in the brain and intestines. Changes in the structure and abundance of the gut microflora affect the synthesis of neurotransmitters, such as GABA and steroids. Differentially expressed genes in the brain were enriched in circadian rhythm functions. The expression of PER, CLOCK,1L-1β, 1L-17, and other genes are related to the abundance of Akkermansia, which indicates that the disorder of gut microflora will affect the normal circadian rhythm of the brain. All indices in the recovery group showed an increasing trend. Overall, the toxicity of Cd and DCF showed antagonism, and a single exposure had a stronger effect on gut microorganisms and circadian rhythm, which provided a scientific basis for exploring the comprehensive effects of different pollutants., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Background: There have been some shifts in the frequency and distribution of biopsy-proven renal diseases in China over recent years. The aim of the study was to investigate the changing spectrum of renal diseases from the view of kidney biopsy data in a single center of China., Methods and Results: A total of 10,996 cases of native renal biopsies from patients aged ≥15 years old in Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, between 2008 and 2018 were analyzed retrospectively. The results showed that primary glomerular nephropathy (PGN) remained the most common biopsy-proven renal disease (69.42% of total), with IgA nephropathy (IgAN) accounting for 44.40% of PGN, membranous nephropathy (MN) for 28.55%, minimal change disease (MCD) for 13.26% and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) for 8.00%. During the study period, the proportion of MN in PGN appeared an increasing tendency, while that of IgAN and MCD remained stable and that of FSGS showed a decline. Secondary glomerular nephropathy (SGN) constituted 21.54% of total cases, among which the leading two diseases were lupus nephritis (LN) and Henoch-Schonlein purpura nephritis (HSN) which accounted for 41.08% and 19.11% respectively., Conclusions: The 11-year retrospective study revealed that PGN was the predominant histologic diagnosis among patients undergoing renal biopsy and the most frequent type of PGN remained to be IgAN, followed by MN which increased dramatically.

Spiking neural networks (SNNs) have attracted attention due to their biological plausibility and the potential for low-energy applications on neuromorphic hardware. Two mainstream approaches are commonly used to obtain SNNs, i.e., ANN-to-SNN conversion methods, and Directly-trained-SNN methods. However, the former achieve excellent performance at the cost of a large number of time steps (i.e., latency), while the latter exhibit lower latency but suffers from suboptimal performance. To tackle the performance-latency trade-off, we propose Self-Architectural Knowledge Distillation (SAKD), an intuitive and effective method for SNNs leveraging Knowledge Distillation (KD). We adopt a bilevel teacher-student training strategy in SAKD, i.e., level-1 involves directly transferring same-architectural pre-trained ANN weights to SNNs, and level-2 encourages the SNNs to mimic ANN's behavior, considering both final responses and intermediate features aspects. Learning with informative supervision signals fostered by labels and ANNs, our SAKD achieves new state-of-the-art (SOTA) performance with a few time steps on widely-used classification benchmark datasets. On ImageNet-1K, with only 4 time steps, our Spiking-ResNet34 model attains a Top-1 accuracy of 70.04%, outperforming the previous same-architectural SOTA methods. Notably, our SEW-ResNet152 model reaches a Top-1 accuracy of 77.30% on ImageNet-1K, setting a new SOTA benchmark for SNNs. Furthermore, we apply our SAKD to various dense prediction downstream tasks, such as object detection and semantic segmentation, demonstrating strong generalization ability and superior performance. In conclusion, our proposed SAKD framework presents a promising approach for achieving both high performance and low latency in SNNs, potentially paving the way for future advancements in the field., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Growth-regulating factors (GRFs) are transcription factors that play a pivotal role in plant growth and development. This study identifies 12 Solanum tuberosum GRF transcription factors (StGRFs) and analyzes their physicochemical properties, phylogenetic relationships, gene structures and gene expression patterns using bioinformatics. The StGRFs exhibit a length range of 266 to 599 amino acids, with a molecular weight of 26.02 to 64.52 kDa. The majority of StGRFs possess three introns. The promoter regions contain a plethora of cis -acting elements related to plant growth and development, as well as environmental stress and hormone response. All the members of the StGRF family contain conserved WRC and QLQ domains, with the sequences of these two conserved domain modules exhibiting high levels of conservation. Transcriptomic data indicates that StGRFs play a significant role in the growth and development of stamens, roots, young tubers, and other tissues or organs in potatoes. Furthermore, a few StGRFs exhibit differential expression patterns in response to Phytophthora infestans , chemical elicitors, heat, salt, and drought stresses, as well as multiple hormone treatments. The results of the expression analysis indicate that StGRF1 , StGRF2 , StGRF5 , StGRF7 , StGRF10 and StGRF12 are involved in the process of tuber sprouting, while StGRF4 and StGRF9 may play a role in tuber dormancy. These findings offer valuable insights that can be used to investigate the roles of StGRFs during potato tuber dormancy and sprouting., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Cui, Song, Jiang, Ye, Wang, Yuan and Liu.)