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Acoustic cardiography is a completely new technology, it has great advantages in the rapid diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases. The purpose of this study was to investigate the clinical value of the fourth heart sound (S4), cardiac systolic dysfunction index (SDI), and the cardiac cycle time-corrected electromechanical activation time (EMATc) in the prediction of post-percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) early ventricular remodeling (EVR) in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). We recruited 161 patients with AMI of 72-h post-PCI, including 44 EVR patients with left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) < 50% and 117 Non-EVR patients (normal left ventricular systolic function group, LVEF ≥ 50%). EMATc, S4, and SDI were independent risk factors for post-PCI early ventricular remodeling in patients with AMI [S4 (OR 2.860, 95% CI 1.297–6.306, p = 0.009), SDI (OR 4.068, 95% CI 1.800–9.194, p = 0.001), and EMATc (OR 1.928, 95% CI 1.420–2.619, p < 0.001)]. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for EMATc was 0.89, with an optimal cutoff point of 12.2, EMATc had a sensitivity of 80% and a specificity of 83%. By contrast, an optimal cutoff point of 100 pg/ml, Serum brain natriuretic peptide had a sensitivity of 46% and a specificity of 83%. Our findings suggest the predictive value of EMATc for the occurrence of EVR in these patients was also identified; EMATc may be a simple, quick, and effective way to diagnose EVR after AMI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Making timely assessments of disease progression in patients with COVID-19 could help offer the best personalized treatment. The purpose of this study was to explore an effective model to predict the outcome of patients with COVID-19. We retrospectively included 188 patients (124 in the training set and 64 in the test set) diagnosed with COVID-19. Patients were divided into aggravation and improvement groups according to the disease progression. Three kinds of models were established, including the radiomics, clinical, and combined model. Receiver operating characteristic curves, decision curves, and Delong's test were used to evaluate and compare the models. Our analysis showed that all the established prediction models had good predictive performance in predicting the progress and outcome of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) signaling has been considered a key regulator of plant developmental processes and defenses. In this study, we demonstrate that high levels of H2S inhibit auxin transport and lead to alterations in root system development. H2S inhibits auxin transport by altering the polar subcellular distribution of PIN proteins. The vesicle trafficking and distribution of the PIN proteins are an actin-dependent process. H2S changes the expression of several actin-binding proteins (ABPs) and decreases the occupancy percentage of F-actin bundles in the Arabidopsis roots. We observed the effects of H2S on F-actin in T-DNA insertion mutants of cpa, cpb and prf3, indicating that the effects of H2S on F-actin are partially removed in the mutant plants. Thus, these data imply that the ABPs act as downstream effectors of the H2S signal and thereby regulate the assembly and depolymerization of F-actin in root cells. Taken together, our data suggest that the existence of a tightly regulated intertwined signaling network between auxin, H2S and actin that controls root system development. In the proposed process, H2S plays an important role in modulating auxin transport by an actin-dependent method, which results in alterations in root development in Arabidopsis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epidemiological observations have shown that schizophrenia patients after long-term drug treatment exhibited reduced tumor incidences. The potential anticancer effects of antipsychotic drugs are subsequently demonstrated. These drugs are of great interest as agents against untreatable brain metastases because of their ability to traverse the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Most drugs tested thus far are the first-generation antipsychotics (FGAs). But their clinical application may be limited due to high risks of deaths in elderly patients. There is an urgent need to find additional BBB-traversing anticancer agents with lower risks of deaths. In this work, we investigated antitumor activities of eight second-generation-antipsychotic (SGA) drugs, since they exhibit lower mortality rates than FGAs. We discovered that sertindole showed broad antiproliferative activities against seven cancer types including 29 cell-lines and exhibited potent effects toward breast cancer cell-lines, with half maximal concentration to inhibit proliferation by 50% (IC50) as low as 800 nM. We further found that sertindole caused cell death through autophagy-associated apoptosis and its directly-binding inhibition of 5-HT6 involved in this process. In xenotransplant mice, sertindole administration approaching maximal therapeutic dose attenuated breast-tumor growth by 22.7%. Therefore, our study reveals promising anticancer potentials of sertindole against breast cancers, with probable applications for breast-to-brain metastases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]