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C/Cu composites have been widely used in the field of electrical contacts due to their excellent conductivity and anti-ablation properties. However, the poor wettability between C and Cu matrix severely significantly shortens the service life of C/Cu electrical contacts. In this work, we theoretically and experimentally demonstrate that rare earth alloying in Cu matrix enhances the interfacial wettability between C and Cu, leading to the improved electrical contact performance. The wetting angle is reduced from 132° to 46° by the incorporation of La (0.56 wt%) into the Cu matrix, which is attributed to the formation of interfacial LaC2, where the Griffith's separation energy of LaC2/Cu was calculated to be −4.6 J/m2 much lower than those of C/Cu (0.13 J/m2) and C/CuLa (0.06 J/m2). The ablation surface of the electric contact demonstrates that improved wettability can diminish carbon accumulation, thereby reducing the contact resistance from 50 mΩ to 2.2 mΩ after 1000 cycles at 380 V and 60 A, with a reduction of mass loss by 50%.This work reveals the bonding mechanism of C/Cu interface, which paves a way for rational design of C/Cu-based electrical contact materials.

The preferential oxidation of alloying elements has long been recognized as the primary mechanism underlying the oxidation resistance of copper alloys. However, the presence of various alloy phases within the Cu matrix complicates the oxidation behavior. Herein, combined DFT calculations and antioxidation experiment were conducted to evaluate the oxidation behavior and underlying mechanism of Cu–La alloys. The results indicate that the oxidation resistance of Cu is significantly enhanced by La element with a reduced mass gain of 49% at 100 °C for 100 h. The effects of oxidation behavior of Cu6La on the oxidation resistance of Cu is further explored by DFT calculations. It reveals that the Cu6La phase with a low work function exhibits a strong affinity for the O atoms. However, the diffusion activation energy of the absorbed O is calculated to be lower in Cu6La than that of O in Cu, which is conducive to mitigate the further erosion of O on Cu matrix. Moreover, the Cu2O–La layer formed on the Cu6La surface is more stable and the oxygen diffusion coefficient in it is lower, which impedes the entry of oxygen. This work advances the understanding of alloying effect on oxidation of Cu surfaces that can be extended to other metal surfaces.

A novel Gram-negative, orange-colored, rod-shaped, oxidase and catalase-positive, non-spore-forming bacterium, designated as zp-37T, was isolated from the rhizosphere soil of Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin. ex Steud in Kashgar County, Xinjiang, China. The phylogenetic analysis, based on the 16S rRNA genes, revealed that strain zp-37T belongs to the genus Halomonas. Growth of strain zp-37T was observed at 10–43 °C, pH 6.0–11.0, and 0–20% NaCl (w/v). The principal fatty acids of strain zp-37T were summed feature 8 (C18:1ω7c and/or C18:1ω6c, 55.67%) and summed feature 3 (C16:1ω7c and/or C16:1ω6c, 20.16%). The polar lipid profile contained diphosphatidylglycerol (DPG), phosphatidylglycerol (PG), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), unidentified phospholipids (UPL 1–3), unidentified aminophospholipids (UAPL 1–2), and unidentified lipid (UL). Its main respiratory quinone was ubiquinone Q-9 (100%). The genome of strain zp-37T was 3,489,967 bp in size, containing two plasmids with lengths of 18,112 bp and 4364 bp, respectively. The genomic DNA G+C content of strain zp-37T was 59.3%. By the genome annotation, various genes related to the function of saline-alkaline stress tolerance and plant growth promotion were predicted. The average nucleotide identity (ANI) and digital DNA–DNA hybridization (dDDH) values between strain zp-37T and its five closely related strains were 72.64–75.59% and 19.70–20.40%, respectively, which were lower than the threshold for species delineation (ANI: 95–96%, dDDH: 70%). Based on the phylogenetic, phenotypic, and chemotaxonomic analyses and genomic comparisons, strain zp-37T was suggested to represent a novel species within the genus Halomonas, for which the name Halomonas kashgarensis sp. nov. is proposed. The strain type was designated zp-37T (=CGMCC 1.62213T = JCM 37305T). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psoriasis is a chronic, recurrent, inflammatory disease influenced by the immune system and by the interaction between individuals and their environment. The Janus kinase (JAK) -STAT3 signaling pathway is a receptor-mediated pathway that transmits signals from various cytokines and plays a key role in the development of psoriasis. Currently, no cure exists for psoriasis. Patients with moderate to severe cases should receive timely systemic treatment to improve their condition and inhibit disease progression. Recent research shows that small molecule inhibitors targeting the activated proteins in the signaling pathway can effectively improve psoriasis symptoms. The relationship between the JAK-STAT3 pathway and psoriasis have been reviewed in this paper, aiming to provide insights into therapeutic strategies targeting STAT3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In unconventional high-temperature (high- T c) superconductors, the pair density wave state, an exotic superconducting order showing spatially periodic order parameter modulations with the period of several unit cells and translational symmetry breaking, has attracted broad attention. However, the superconducting pair density modulation (PDM) within a single unit cell has never been carefully investigated before. Here, using scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy, we report the observation of PDM in monolayer high- T c iron chalcogenide films epitaxially grown on SrTiO3(001). The superconductivity modulations are characterized by the superconducting gap size and the coherence peak sharpness. Further analysis shows that the local maxima and minima in the superconducting gap modulation are centered at the crystallographic locations of the chalcogen atoms, revealing the breaking of the glide-mirror symmetry of the chalcogen atoms in monolayer high- T c iron chalcogenide films grown on SrTiO3(001). Our findings provide precise microscopic information on superconductivity within the lattice unit cell and may promote the understanding of unconventional high- T c superconductivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synonymous mutations, once considered neutral, are now understood to have significant implications for a variety of diseases, particularly cancer. It is indispensable to identify these driver synonymous mutations in human cancers, yet current methods are constrained by data limitations. In this study, we initially investigate the impact of sequence-based features, including DNA shape, physicochemical properties and one-hot encoding of nucleotides, and deep learning-derived features from pre-trained chemical molecule language models based on BERT. Subsequently, we propose EPEL, an effect predictor for synonymous mutations employing ensemble learning. EPEL combines five tree-based models and optimizes feature selection to enhance predictive accuracy. Notably, the incorporation of DNA shape features and deep learning-derived features from chemical molecule represents a pioneering effect in assessing the impact of synonymous mutations in cancer. Compared to existing state-of-the-art methods, EPEL demonstrates superior performance on independent test datasets. Furthermore, our analysis reveals a significant correlation between effect scores and patient outcomes across various cancer types. Interestingly, while deep learning methods have shown promise in other fields, their DNA sequence representations do not significantly enhance the identification of driver synonymous mutations in this study. Overall, we anticipate that EPEL will facilitate researchers to more precisely target driver synonymous mutations. EPEL is designed with flexibility, allowing users to retrain the prediction model and generate effect scores for synonymous mutations in human cancers. A user-friendly web server for EPEL is available at http://ahmu.EPEL.bio/. Author summary: Although driver synonymous mutations play a crucial role in cancer, their identification is challenged by limited data and intricate pathogenic mechanisms. To overcome these obstacles, we introduced EPEL, a stacking ensemble learning approach for predicting the impact of synonymous mutations in cancer. We systematically explored various novel features, including DNA shape characteristics and chemical molecule-based features. The results show that these features significantly enhance the predictive performance of driver synonymous mutations. We compared EPEL with the other state-of-the-art methods on an independent test dataset. The findings reveal that EPEL substantially enhances the accuracy of identifying driver synonymous mutations. In addition, our findings highlight a critical correlation between effect scores and patient outcomes across various cancer types. It is worth noting that deep biological language models contribute less to the prediction of driver synonymous mutation. We anticipate that these findings will aid in deepening the understanding of driver synonymous mutations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anomaly detection on industrial multivariate time-series data is an important research topic for industrial control systems. Due to the high dimensionality of industrial multivarlate time-series and the lack of labeled anomaly· samples, deep neural networks with the ability of learning temporal patterns in an unsupervised way have become the mainstream techniques, but there is still remaining limitations. First, they have not explicitly modeled the complex correlations between different dimensions. Second, they cannot make a balance between pattern deviation anomalies and single metric anomalies. Aiming at these limitations, this paper proposes AD-FGP, a framework for industrial multivariate timeseries anomaly detection. At)-FGP has two novel features. First, it explicitly learns the correlations between different dimensions using a graph neural network. Second, it fuses a generative model and a predictive model to detect both pattern deviation anomalies and single metric anomalies effectively. We conducted extensive experiments based on both real-world and public datasets. Experiment results show that AD-FGP has a best overall anomaly detection performance by increasing the F 1 -score 5% to 40% as compared to the baseline methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electroencephalography (EEG) is an objective tool for emotion recognition with promising applications. However, the scarcity of labeled data remains a major challenge in this field, limiting the widespread use of EEG-based emotion recognition. In this paper, a semi-supervised Dual-stream Self-attentive Adversarial Graph Contrastive learning framework (termed as DS-AGC) is proposed to tackle the challenge of limited labeled data in cross-subject EEG-based emotion recognition. The DS-AGC framework includes two parallel streams for extracting non-structural and structural EEG features. The non-structural stream incorporates a semi-supervised multi-domain adaptation method to alleviate distribution discrepancy among labeled source domain, unlabeled source domain, and unknown target domain. The structural stream develops a graph contrastive learning method to extract effective graph-based feature representation from multiple EEG channels in a semi-supervised manner. Further, a self-attentive fusion module is developed for feature fusion, sample selection, and emotion recognition, which highlights EEG features more relevant to emotions and data samples in the labeled source domain that are closer to the target domain. Extensive experiments are conducted on four benchmark databases (SEED, SEED-IV, SEED-V, and FACED) using a semi-supervised cross-subject leave-one-subject-out cross-validation evaluation protocol. The results show that the proposed model outperforms existing methods under different incomplete label conditions with an average improvement of 2.17%, which demonstrates its effectiveness in addressing the label scarcity problem in cross-subject EEG-based emotion recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lunar in situ resource utilization is a core goal in lunar exploration, with accurate lunar rock pose estimation being essential. To address the challenges posed by the lack of texture features and extreme lighting conditions, this study proposes the Simulation-YOLO-Hourglass-Transformer (SYHT) method. The method enhances accuracy and robustness in complex lunar environments, demonstrating strong adaptability and excellent performance, particularly in conditions of extreme lighting and scarce texture. This approach provides valuable insights for object pose estimation in lunar exploration tasks and lays the foundation for lunar resource development. First, the YOLO-Hourglass-Transformer (YHT) network is used to extract keypoint information from each rock and generate the corresponding 3D pose. Then, a lunar surface imaging physics simulation model is employed to generate simulated lunar rock data for testing the method. The experimental results show that the SYHT method performs exceptionally well on simulated lunar rock data, achieving a mean per-joint position error (MPJPE) of 37.93 mm and a percentage of correct keypoints (PCK) of 99.94%, significantly outperforming existing methods. Finally, transfer learning experiments on real-world datasets validate its strong generalization capability, highlighting its effectiveness for lunar rock pose estimation in both simulated and real lunar environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Daqu, the starter used in Baijiu making process, is produced by spontaneous solid-state fermentation and contains numerous microbes and enzymes, significantly influencing the yield and flavour profile of Baijiu. In this study, we employed a full-length ITS metabarcoding approach using the PacBio sequencing technology to investigate the fungal diversity in 296 samples of low- (LTD), medium- (MTD) and high-temperature Daqu (HTD) collected from 10 provinces in China. In total, we identified 86 species or species groups in the fungal communities of Daqu. The fungal communities of the three types of Daqu were significantly different and the differences were also associated with their geographical origins. Ascoideales (relative abundance 21.04%), Pichiales (15.38%), Mucorales (39.54%) and Eurotiales (19.96%) totally accounted for 95.92% of the fungal community of the Daqu samples. The former two were significantly enriched in the LTD samples and the latter two in the MTD and HTD samples, respectively. We also identified the distinct fungal species that showed differential enrichment within each Daqu type as well as among samples of the same type originating from different regions. These findings offer a deeper insight into the fungal communities associated with various Daqu types and their geographical origins at the species level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Zagreb and Essen regimens are comparable in terms of immunogenicity; however, how these regimens impact the immunogenicity of booster vaccination remains unknown. We conducted a clinical trial to assess the immunogenicity of booster vaccination with a purified Vero cell rabies vaccine after primary vaccination with the Zagreb or Essen regimens. This randomized, open-label, controlled, phase 3 trial, conducted in Shangyu City and Shengzhou City, Zhejiang Province, China, was divided into the primary and booster vaccination phases. After screening, all eligible participants were allocated to groups A, B, C, D, E, or F. Groups A, B, and C received the Zagreb regimen as the primary vaccine, while groups D, E, and F received the Essen regimen. The booster vaccination was conducted 6 months after the primary vaccination. Groups B and E received one dose of the booster, while groups C and F received two doses. Blood samples were collected before the booster, at 14 days after the booster, and at approximately 6 months after the booster. Safety was assessed from the first booster dose to 6 months after the final dose. A total of 718 participants completed the booster vaccination. The antibody positive rate (APR) of groups B, C, E, and F after the booster was 100%. The antibody titer rose significantly even after one booster, and was much higher in groups B (48.80 IU/ml) and C (64.38 IU/ml) (receiving Zagreb) than in groups E (34.25 IU/ml) and F (42.89 IU/ml) (receiving Essen). Although the incidence of ARs was higher in groups B (11.22%) and C (15.79%) than in groups E (3.68%) and F (10.87%), they were all mild and short-lived. No serious adverse events (SAEs) associated with vaccination were reported. The immunogenicity of booster vaccination after the Zagreb regimen was significantly higher than that after the Essen regimen. One booster may be sufficient to raise the antibody titer above the 0.5 IU/mL target.Clinical trial registration: This trial is registered at http://www.chinadrugtrials.org.cn/index.html under the registration number CTR20210426 at 08/03/2021., Competing Interests: Declarations. Ethics declarations: This clinical trial was approved by Institutional Review Board (IRB) of Zhejiang Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (approval number: 2021-001-01), and adhered to the Good Clinical Practice (GCP), Declaration of Helsinki, and Chinese regulatory requirements. All participants and their guardians (for the participants aged 10–17 years) were fully informed before screening. Written informed consent was obtained from the participants (if aged 18–60 years) or the participants (if aged 10–17 years) and their guardians prior to study screening. Competing interests: Miaomiao Liu, Yan Wang and Yu Mao are the employees of Liaoning Chengda Biological Limited by Share Ltd, the other authors had no conflicts of interest to declare., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Abstract: Epilepsy is a prevalent neurological disorder in which hippocampal neuronal damage, particularly ferroptosis, plays a critical role. Previous studies have shown that hypoxia-inducible factor 1α is considered an important regulator of cellular stress responses and has been confirmed to play a critical role in the occurrence of various diseases. However, the mechanisms by which hypoxia-inducible factor 1α is related to epilepsy and neuronal ferroptosis remain unclear. In this study, we used a pentylentetrazole-induced chronic epilepsy mouse model and treated the mice with intraperitoneal administration of PX-478, a hypoxiainducible factor-1α inhibitor. Our results showed that PX-478 significantly prolonged the latency of epilepsy, reduced seizure severity, and shortened seizure duration. PX-478 also alleviated neuronal damage in the hippocampal CA1 and CA2 regions, reduced levels of reactive oxygen species and malondialdehyde, and increased levels of superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione peroxidase. Transmission electron microscopy showed that PX-478 treatment reduced mitochondrial damage in the hippocampal neurons of epileptic mice, and significantly improved mitochondrial length and area. Additionally, PX-478 preferentially reduced Fe2+ levels and the expression of cyclooxygenase-2, ferritin heavy chain 1 and transferrin in the hippocampus of epileptic mice. It also inhibited the activity of the hypoxia-inducible factor 1α/heme oxygenase-1 pathway. In summary, these findings suggest that PX-478 has the potential to treat epilepsy by inhibiting the hypoxia-inducible factor 1α/heme oxygenase-1 pathway, alleviating oxidative stress, and reducing ferroptosis in hippocampal neurons., (Copyright © 2025 Neural Regeneration Research.)

Lipid accumulation in renal tubules is a major determinant of diabetic kidney disease (DKD), and activation of SREBPs plays a central role in this process. Our study aims to explore whether HSPA8, a molecular chaperone, is the master regulator of INSIG/SREBPs function in DKD. Here, we show that tubular epithelial cell (TEC)-specific knockout of HSPA8 upregulates the phosphorylation of INSIG1 and INSIG2, which disrupts the interaction between INSIG proteins and SCAP, leading to SREBP activation. TEC-specific overexpression of HSPA8 restrains these changes. INSIG1/2 can be phosphorylated by protein kinase R (PKR), while HSPA8 recognizes PKR and recruits the E3 ubiquitin ligase to promote PKR ubiquitination and degradation. Under temporary hyperglycemic stimulation, SREBP1 transcriptionally activates HSPA8 expression. Conversely, persistent hyperglycemia reduces HSPA8 levels via promoting NF-κB-mediated transcriptional inhibition of HSPA8. Collectively, these findings indicate that the molecular chaperone HSPA8 serves as a negative feedback regulator of SREBPs, lipogenesis, and DKD development., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests The authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Lysosomes are vital organelles for degradation, recycling, and cellular homeostasis, impacting signaling and metabolism. Analyzing the lysosomal proteome dynamics is key to understanding these roles, but the acidic environment and low abundance of lysosomes make proteomic analysis challenging. Herein, we developed a lysosome-localizable reactive diazirine molecule MDA and demonstrated its enhanced labeling capability in the lysosomal microenvironment. Furthermore, we introduced a novel microenvironment-specific enrichment (MiSE) strategy for profiling the lysosomal proteome, combining MDA-based labeling with affinity enrichment. We successfully applied MiSE to profile the lysosomal proteome in living SH-SY5Y cells, achieving coverage of 132 lysosome-annotated proteins. Moreover, by coupling MiSE with data-independent acquisition (DIA) analysis, we explored dynamic changes in the lysosomal proteome upon inhibition of the ubiquitin-proteasome system using four proteasome inhibitors. Our results reveal 117 UPS-inhibition-related lysosomal proteins, highlighting their involvement in stress response and cell cycle regulation. Notably, we observe distinct proteomic signatures for each inhibitor, suggesting unique mechanisms of lysosomal response to UPS inhibition. Therefore, MiSE offers a powerful tool for investigating the dynamic lysosomal proteome, providing insights into cellular homeostasis and disease pathogenesis. This approach holds significant potential for advancing the understanding of lysosomal function and developing novel therapeutic strategies.

Artificial intelligence holds great promise for the design of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs); however, current models face limitations in generating AMPs with sufficient novelty and diversity, and they are rarely applied to the generation of antifungal peptides. Here, we develop an alternative pipeline grounded in a diffusion model and molecular dynamics for the de novo design of AMPs. The peptides generated by our pipeline have lower similarity and identity than those of other reported methodologies. Among the 40 peptides synthesized for an experimental validation, 25 exhibit either antibacterial or antifungal activity. AMP-29 shows selective antifungal activity against Candida glabrata and in vivo antifungal efficacy in a murine skin infection model. AMP-24 exhibits potent in vitro activity against Gram-negative bacteria and in vivo efficacy against both skin and lung Acinetobacter baumannii infection models. The proposed approach offers a pipeline for designing diverse AMPs to counteract the threat of antibiotic resistance.

Post-cardiac arrest brain injury (PCABI), as the main cause of high mortality and long-term disability in patients, induces mitochondrial damage and cell apoptosis. Hypothermia is well-known as an effective neuroprotective therapy, but its underlying mechanisms deserve further exploration. Previous study has demonstrated that hypothermia provides neuroprotection via increasing PINK1/Parkin-mediated mitophagy. However, whether hypothermia can regulate both apoptosis and mitophagy through the PINK1/Parkin-VDAC3 signaling pathway or not. In this study, BV2 mouse microglial cells were cultured under oxygen-glucose deprivation for 6 h following reperfusion with or without hypothermia for 2-4 h. Cell viability was examined by trypan blue stain. Mitophagy was observed by transmission electron microscope. Mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) and mitochondrial permeability transition pore (mPTP) opening were determined respectively by JC-1 staining and BBcellProbe M61 staining using a flow cytometer. Expression of mitophagy-related proteins (Cleaved PINK1, Parkin, SQSTM1/p62, Beclin-1, LC3B II/LC3B I), apoptosis-related proteins (Bcl-2, Cytochrome C, caspase-3, cleaved caspase3) and VDAC3 were assessed using western blot analysis and quantitative real-time PCR. The interaction between Parkin and VDAC3 was confirmed by immunofluorescence colocalization. The results showed that hypothermia alleviated MMP damage, inhibited mPTP opening, then decreased cell apoptosis and activated mitophagy at 2 h after temperature intervention, which might be mediated by the PINK1/Parkin-VDAC3 signaling pathway. Moreover, the effects of hypothermia were reduced or reversed at 4 h after temperature intervention. In conclusion, the potential mechanisms of hypothermia during oxygen-glucose deprivation/recovery could be summarized as follows:1) At 2 h after temperature intervention, hypothermia provided neuroprotective effects via promoting mitophagy and reducing apoptosis through activating the PINK1/Parkin-VDAC3 signaling pathway. 2) The curative effect of hypothermia was timeliness. At 4 h after temperature intervention, hypothermia aggravated apoptosis through inhibiting Parkin recruitment to mitochondria and aggravating the release of Cyt C through open mPTP., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

The Streptococcus canis Cas9 protein (ScCas9) recognizes the NNG protospacer adjacent motif (PAM), offering a wider range of targets than that offered by the commonly used S. pyogenes Cas9 protein (SpCas9). However, both ScCas9 and its evolved Sc++ variant still exhibit low genome editing efficiency in plants, particularly at the less preferred NTG and NCG PAM targets. In this study, a chimeric SpcRN++ variant is engineered by grafting the recognition (REC) domain of SpCas9 into the Sc++ variant, incorporating the R221K/N394K mutations, and retaining the positively charged loop of S. anginosus Cas9. The SpcRN++ variant exhibits a higher genome editing capacity and wider target range than the Sc++ variant in rice protoplasts and stable transgenic plants. Further evidence indicates that nSpcRN++-based A3A/Y130F and TadA8e exhibit enhanced cytosine and adenine editing efficiency in plants. Finally, herbicide-resistant rice germplasms are produced by targeting the OsACC gene using nSpcRN++-based adenine base editors. These results demonstrate that SpcRN++ is a powerful tool for genome editing in plants, and this integrative protein engineering strategy holds promise for engineering other Cas9 proteins., (© 2025 The Author(s). Advanced Science published by Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

Insulin resistance, a hallmark of type 2 diabetes, accelerates muscle breakdown and impairs energy metabolism. However, the role of Ubiquitin Specific Peptidase 2 (USP2), a key regulator of insulin resistance, in sarcopenia remains unclear. Peroxisome proliferator activated receptor γ (PPARγ) plays a critical role in regulating muscle atrophy. This study investigates the role of deubiquitinase USP2 in mitigating muscle atrophy. Our findings revealed reduced USP2 expression in skeletal muscles of patients with type 2 diabetes. In mouse models of diabetes- and dexamethasone (DEX)-induced muscle atrophy, USP2 expression was downregulated in skeletal muscles. Usp2 knockout exacerbated muscle loss and functional impairment induced by diabetes or DEX. Moreover, skeletal muscle-specific Usp2 knockout further aggravated muscle loss and functional impairment induced by diabetes. Local injection of AAV-Usp2 into the gastrocnemius muscles of diabetic mice increased muscle mass, and improved skeletal muscle performance and endurance. It enhanced insulin sensitivity in diabetic mice, shown by lower fasting serum glucose and insulin levels and better glucose tolerance. Mechanistic analysis showed USP2 directly interacted with PPARγ by deubiquitinating it, stabilizing its protein levels, enhancing insulin signaling and sensitivity, and maintaining muscle mass. Loss of PPARγ abolishes the regulatory effects of USP2 on insulin sensitivity and muscle atrophy. MYOD1 activates USP2 transcription by binding to its promoter region. This study demonstrates the protective role of USP2 in mitigating muscle atrophy by stabilizing PPARγ through deubiquitination, particularly in models of diabetic and DEX-induced muscle atrophy. Targeting the USP2-PPARγ axis may offer promising therapeutic strategies for metabolic disorders and sarcopenia., (© 2025 by the American Diabetes Association.)

Objective: The rice-duck-crayfish (RDC) coculture system, an ecologically efficient breeding method, supports ducks' natural habits and enhances duck welfare. However, the optimal stocking density and its influence on duck health in this system remains undetermined. The study examined the effects of stocking densities on growth, organ index, serum biochemistry, gut morphology and microbiota of ducks in RDC system., Methods: A total of five hundred and forty 20-day-old Nonghu No. 2 ducks were randomly divided into low-density (8 birds/666.67 m2, LD), medium-density (12 birds/666.67 m2, MD) and high-density (16 birds/666.67 m2, HD) groups, with three replicates in each group, and the symbiosis period was up to 40 days until rice tasselling., Results: There were no significant differences in final body weight, average daily gain, or feed:gain ratio between groups (p>0.05); the liver and spleen indices of ducks in HD group were significantly greater than in LD group (p<0.05); the serum albumin concentration in HD group decreased, whereas creatine kinase activity increased (p<0.05); the ileal crypt depth significantly increased; and the ileal villus height and villus/crypt ratio significantly decreased in ducks in MD and HD groups than in LD group (p<0.05). Additionally, the abundance of cecal Deferribacterota and Spirochaetota increased significantly (p<0.05), while the abundance of Firmicutes decreased significantly (p<0.05) with increasing stocking density. Moreover, the increase in stocking density significantly decreased the abundance of some beneficial bacteria (Faecalibacterium and Fournierella) and increased the abundance of some harmful bacteria (Mucispirillum and Brachyspira) (p<0.05)., Conclusion: These preliminary results suggest that moderately high-density breeding doesn't significantly affect duck growth, but increased stocking density led to changes in cecal microbiota and dysbiosis. Reducing stocking density positively affects immune parameters and ileum morphology.However, due to the limited number of total replicates of the study, further research is needed to validate the reliability of the results.

Recent advances in single-cell proteomics enable the direct profiling of thousands of proteins from a single mammalian cell. However, due to the bottlenecks in detecting low-abundance secreted proteins and extracellular vesicle (EV) proteins (collectively referred to as the secretome) against a background of high-abundance proteins in serum-containing culture medium, the comprehensive investigation of the secretome at the single-cell level using nanoLC-MS/MS still remains challenging. Herein, we report a novel single-cell secretome profiling (SCSP) method by integrating the metabolic labeling of newly synthesized proteins, click chemistry-based enrichment, and in situ digestion of the labeled secretome in an alkyne-functionalized capillary micro-reactor, followed by nanoLC-MS/MS analysis. By this method, an average of 389 protein groups were quantified from the secretome of single HeLa cells (n=17), with a total of 752 protein groups confidently identified in the single-cell secretome, which is a significant increase compared to the previously reported targeted analysis limited to dozens of secreted proteins by antibody recognition. These results indicated that our developed SCSP method would provide a powerful tool to gain insights into secretion heterogeneity and intercellular communication at the single-cell level., (© 2024 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

Signet-ring cell carcinoma is a poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma with a high degree of malignancy, which rarely occurs in hilar bile duct. As far as I know, this is the third signet-ring cell carcinoma of hilar cholangiocarcinoma found so far. We used endoscopic ultrasound（EUS） and per-oral cholangioscopy（POCPS） to make a definite diagnosis.

Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Throw and catch are fundamental motor skills that are closely related to eye-hand coordination, reaction speed, and spatial awareness in children. Current research on throw and catch mainly focuses on the impact of attentional focus, anticipatory knowledge, and training on visuomotor control. Little work has been done on the synchronized movements of eyes and joints during the throw and catch. To understand how these synchronized movements contribute to the success rate of throwing and catching, we proposed a video-based framework named Synchronized Eye and Joint Analysis (SEJA). This framework locates, extracts, and analyzes the essential eye and joint movements from untrimmed first-person and third-person view videos. Using the proposed framework, throw and catch events in long untrimmed videos were successfully identified, and whether each catch was successful was accurately assessed. Additionally, detailed metrics related to predictive gaze behaviors and predictive hand movements for each catch event were obtained. On a dataset consisting of videos from 56 children aged 7 to 10, the proposed framework delivered an average precision (AP) ranging from 0.5 to 0.95 at 0.881 for task localization and achieved an accuracy of 0.985 in predicting whether a catch was successful. Our research indicated that children with higher catch success rates showed shorter delays in predicting the ball's trajectory, smaller amplitudes of body movement, and more pronounced predictive saccades (rapid eye movements to anticipate the ball's position). These findings are crucial for comprehending and improving the development of motor skills in children.