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Tooth-related inflammatory disorders, including caries, pulpitis, apical periodontitis (AP), and periodontitis (PD), are primarily caused by resident oral microorganisms. Although these dental inflammatory conditions are typically not life-threatening, neglecting them can result in significant complications and greatly reduce an individual's quality of life. Nuclear factor κB (NF-κB), a family formed by various combinations of Rel proteins, is extensively involved in inflammatory diseases and even cancer. This study reviews recent data on NF-κB signaling and its role in dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs), dental pulp fibroblasts (DPFs), odontoblasts, human periodontal ligament cells (hPDLCs), and various experimental animal models. The findings indicate that NF-κB signaling is abnormally activated in caries, pulpitis, AP, and PD, leading to changes in related cellular differentiation. Under specific conditions, NF-κB signaling occasionally interacts with other signaling pathways, affecting inflammation, bone metabolism, and tissue regeneration processes. In summary, data collected over recent years confirm the central role of NF-κB in dental inflammatory diseases, potentially providing new insights for drug development targeting NF-κB signaling pathways in the treatment of these conditions. Keywords: NF-κB, dental caries, pulpitis, apical periodontitis, periodontitis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors convey their response to a feedback about their report on low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) for the prevention of venous thromboembolism in patients undergoing knee arthroscopic surgery and anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR). Topics mentioned include heterogeneity of surgical interventions in the ACLR subgroup, knee arthroscopy surgery with simple procedures without ligament reconstruction, and risk-benefit balance for prophylaxis with LMWH.

Abstract: Activated carbon/CoFe2O4 composite (AC/CFO) was synthesized by a simple one-step refluxing route and was used as adsorbent for the removal of malachite green (MG) dye from water. The structure, morphology and magnetic properties of as-prepared composite were characterized by X-ray diffractometer (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The results indicated that CoFe2O4 particles deposited on the surface of activated carbon in the composite were uniform with the particle size in the range of 14–20nm. The composite adsorbents exhibited a clearly hysteretic behavior under applied magnetic field, which allowed their magnetic separation from water. Batch experiments were carried out to investigate adsorption isotherms and kinetics of MG onto the composite. The experimental data fitted well with the Langmuir model with a monolayer adsorption capacity of 89.29mgg−1. The adsorption kinetics was found to follow pseudo-second-order kinetic model. It was indicated that the as-prepared composite could be used as a promising and effective adsorbent for the removal of MG from water. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Phosphoinositide 3-kinase γ (PI3Kγ) is a signaling protein that is constitutively expressed in immune competent cells and plays a crucial role in cell proliferation, apoptosis, migration, deformation, and immunology. Several studies have shown that high expression of PI3Kγ can inhibit the occurrence of inflammation in microglia while also regulating the polarization of microglia to inhibit inflammation and enhance microglial migration and phagocytosis. It is well known that the regulation of microglial polarization, migration, and phagocytosis is key to the treatment of most neurodegenerative diseases. Therefore, in this article, we review the important regulatory role of PI3Kγ in microglia to provide a basis for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases., 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: Early mobilization is one of the essential components of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) pathways and has been shown to reduce complications and optimize patient outcomes. However, the effect of early mobilization for patients who undergo trans-femoral cardiac catheterization and the time for optimal mobilization timing remains controversial. We aimed to identify the safety of early mobilization and provide the optimum timing for early mobilization for patients undergoing trans-femoral cardiac catheterization., Methods: We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane databases of systematic reviews, CINAHL, SCOPUS, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wan Fang Database, and Chinese Science and Technology Periodical Database (VIP) comprehensively for randomized controlled trials associated with early mobilization, to explore its effects on patients after a trans-femoral cardiac catheterization. The risk of bias and heterogeneity of studies was assessed using the Revised Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomized trials (RoB 2) and I 2 index, respectively. The comprehensive Meta-analysis (CMA) was adopted to perform the meta-analysis., Results: We identified 14 trials with 2653 participants. Early mobilization was associated with significant decrease in back pain (mean difference (MD) = 0.634, 95% CI: 0.23-1.038; p = 0.002), especially in patients receiving instruction for early mobilization in 3 h~4 h versus 5 h~6 h (MD = 0.737, 95% CI: 0.431-1.043; p = 0.000) and 12 h versus 24 h (OR = 5.504, 95% CI: 1.646-18.407; p = 0.006) categories. The results of subgroup analysis also showed a significant risk reduction in urinary retention by early mobilization in 12 h versus 24 h (OR = 5.707, 95% CI: 1.859-17.521; p = 0.002) category., Conclusions: Early mobilization has not been shown to increase the risk of bleeding, hematoma, pseudoaneurysm, urinary retention, and pain at the puncture site after trans-femoral cardiac catheterization. Early mobilization is a practical initiative in ERAS, and it may be safe and feasible to advance the mobilization to 2 h~4 h., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright: © 2024 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.)

Objectives: To identify the barriers to and facilitators of secondary prevention among people with coronary heart disease from the perspectives of nurses., Design: A qualitative descriptive design using face-to-face semistructured interviews., Setting: This study was conducted in China from October to November 2021., Participants: Registered nurses who had experience conducting secondary prevention for coronary heart disease were purposively recruited. Twelve nurses from 10 hospitals participated in this study. The data were analysed using content analysis based on the Theoretical Domains Framework., Results: Based on the Theoretical Domains Framework, barriers to and facilitators of secondary prevention were identified within four key themes: nurse attributes (eg, knowledge and skills, motivation), patient characteristics (eg, age, education and economic conditions), the environmental context and resources (eg, organisational support, including financial support, clarity of responsibilities) and social influence (eg, economic development level, patient feedback)., Conclusions: This research highlights the importance of nurses' motivation for delivering preventive care. Organisations should provide adequate support and establish a quality management system to maintain the quality of secondary prevention., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Introduction: Small-molecular drugs are extensively used in cancer therapy, while they have issues of nonspecific distribution and consequent side effects. Nanomedicines that incorporate chemotherapeutic drugs have been developed to enhance the therapeutic efficacy of these drugs and reduce their side effects. One of the promising strategies is to prepare nanomedicines by harnessing the unique tumor microenvironment (TME)., Areas Covered: The TME contains numerous cell types that specifically express specific antibodies on the surface. The physicochemical environment is characterized with a low pH, hypoxia, and a high redox potential resulting from tumor-specific metabolism. Therefore, intelligent nanomedicines designed based on the characteristics of the tumor microenvironment can be divided into two groups: the first group which is rapidly responsive to extracellular chemical/biological factors in the TME and the second one which actively and/or specifically targets cellular components in the TME., Expert Opinion: In this paper, we review recent progress of nanomedicines by harnessing the TME and illustrate the principles and advantages of different strategies for designing nanomedicines, which are of great significance for exploring novel nanomedicines or translating current nanomedicines into clinical practice. We will discuss the challenges and prospects of preparing nanomedicines to utilize or alter the TME for achieving effective, safe anticancer treatment.

Background: The lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR) has been proposed as a novel prognostic factor in malignancies and cardiovascular diseases. Our study aimed to ascertain whether LMR is a useful biomarker in discriminating the hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) patients at higher risk of all-cause mortality., Methods: This retrospective study consisted of 354 adult HCM patients. Cox's proportional hazards regression models were used to analyze the association between LMR and all-cause mortality. Smooth curve fitting was conducted to explore the linear relationship between LMR and all-cause mortality., Results: During the follow-up, 44 patients reached the study endpoint. The all-cause mortality rate was 7.3 per 100 person-years in the first tertile and decreased across the three tertiles of LMR. With the first tertile as reference, adjusted hazard ratios (HR) for all-cause mortality were 0.43 for the second tertile (95% CI [0.20-0.91], p  = 0.027) and 0.39 for the third tertile (95% CI [0.17-0.90], p  = 0.028), respectively. Smooth curve fitting exhibited a nonlinear relationship between LMR values and all-cause mortality. For LMR < 6.5, per SD increase resulted in a significantly decreased risk of all-cause mortality by 62% (HR: 0.38, 95% CI [0.21-0.68]). For LMR ≥ 6.5, the all-cause mortality risk did not progressively increase. Stratified and subgroup analyses revealed similar results to the main analyses,andE-value analysis suggested robustness to unmeasured confounding., Conclusions: The study demonstrated that LMR was an independent predictor of all-cause mortality in HCM patients, and LMR may be useful for identifying HCM patients at high mortality risk., Competing Interests: The authors declare there are no competing interests., (©2022 Chen et al.)

To understand the possible perturbations of graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets on cell membranes is the first step to evaluate their cytotoxicity, while the membrane heterogeneity such like lipid phase separation complicates such interactions. Using the dynamic giant unilamellar vesicle leakage assays, atomic force microscopy characterizations, and molecular dynamics simulations, we demonstrated the structural and property disturbance of GO on a lipid bilayer membrane in a low ionic strength and neutral pH condition, specifically the influence of lipid phase on this process. GO tends to obliquely insert into and even be sandwiched between leaflets of a liquid-phase membrane, inducing formidable flaw in lipid packing states and fast transmembrane leakage. However, GO adopts parallel adsorption or vertical insertion on/into a gel-phase bilayer, while permeabilization occurs only when the disturbance is strong enough. Our results are helpful to understand the fundamental interaction mechanism between GO nanosheets and cells.

The existing cholesterols (Chols) in animal cell membranes play key roles in many fundamental cellular processes, which also promise the possibility to modulate the bioactivity of various membrane-active biomacromolecules. Here, combining dynamic giant unilamellar vesicle leakage experiments and molecular dynamics simulations, the inhibitory effect of Chols on the membrane poration activity of melittin (Mel), a typical natural antimicrobial peptide, is demonstrated. Molecular details of the Mel-Chol interactions in membrane show that, for a Chol-contained lipid membrane, Mel exposure would perturb the symmetric bilayer structure of the membrane and specifically influence the location and orientation distributions of Chol molecules to an asymmetric state between the two leaflets; moreover, the Mel-Chol interactions are significantly influenced by the membrane environment such as unsaturation degree of the lipid components. Such inhibitory effect is normally ascribed to an accumulation of Chol molecules around the membrane-bound peptide chains and formation of Chol-Mel complexes in the membrane, which hinder the further insertion of peptides into the membrane. This work clarifies the molecular interactions between membrane-active peptides and Chol-contained membranes, and suggest the possibility to develop targeted drugs due to the membrane component specificity between bacterial and animal cells., 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 © 2021 Li, Lu, Ma, Chen, Sun, Wang, Yuan and Yang.)

Many fundamental biological processes occur on cell membranes, and a typical example is the membrane permeabilization by peptides for an antimicrobial purpose. Previous studies of the underlying mechanism mostly focus on structural changes of membranes and peptides during their interactions. Herein, from a new perspective of single-molecule dynamics, the real-time three-dimensional motions of individual phospholipid and peptide molecules were monitored, and specifically, their correlation with the membrane poration function of melittin, a most representative natural antimicrobial peptide, was studied. We found that the adsorption and accumulation of melittin on the membrane surface significantly sped up the lateral diffusion of lipids surrounding the peptides, which in turn facilitated the peptide insertion at such heterogeneous regions. A unique "U"-bending pathway of melittin during membrane insertion and the ultimate formation of toroidal pores with dynamical translocations of peptides and lipids with several metastable states between the two leaflets of bilayer were observed.