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Abstract: We investigated the effects of engrafted human adult olfactory neuroepithelial neurosphere forming cells (NSFCs) on regeneration and reinnervation of rubrospinal tract (RST) axons and locomotor recovery following partial cervical hemisection that completely ablated the RST. Weekly behavioral testing showed greater functional recovery of forelimb use during the 12 weeks after NSFCs engraftment than in the control rats. Anterograde tracing with biotinylated dextran amine (BDA) confirmed the presence of RST axons within the white matter 4–8 segments caudal to the grafts. Both immunofluorescence and immunoelectron microscopy revealed the BDA-labeled RST axonal terminals reestablished synaptic connections with motoneurons in the ventral horn of the distal cervical spinal cord. Further study of forelimb functional recovery in NSFCs-engrafted subgroups considered the effects of a second dorsolateral funiculotomy, irreversibly destroying the recovery, and the injection of muscimol, blocking RST neuronal activity reversibly. These results highlight the unique potential of human olfactory neuroepithelial-derived progenitors as an autologous cell source for spinal cord repair. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Botulinum toxin A (BoNT-A) has emerged as a treatment option for temporomandibular disorder (TMD). By injecting BoNT-A into the masseter muscle, it is possible to reduce mechanical loading on the temporomandibular joint (TMJ). However, numerous prior studies have indicated excessive reduction in mechanical loading can have detrimental effects on TMJ cartilage. This study proposes that autophagy, a process influenced by mechanical loading, could play a role in BoNT-A-induced mandibular condyle cartilage degeneration. To explore this hypothesis, we employed both BoNT-A injection and an excessive biting model to induce variations in mechanical loading on the condyle cartilage of C57BL/6 mice, thereby simulating an increase and decrease in mechanical loading, respectively. Results showed a significant reduction in cartilage thickness and downregulation of Runt-related transcription factor 2 (Runx2) expression in chondrocytes following BoNT-A injection. In vitro experiments demonstrated that the reduction of Runx2 expression in chondrocytes is associated with autophagy, possibly dependent on decreased YAP expression induced by low mechanical loading. This study reveals the potential involvement of the YAP/LC3/Runx2 signaling pathway in BoNT-A mediated mandibular condylar cartilage degeneration. [Display omitted] • BoNT-A injection reduced mechanical loading in the mandibular condyle, decreased expression of YAP in chondrocytes. • YAP modulates Runx2 in response to the mechanical loading change on chondrocytes. • Autophagy is potentially involved in the regulation of YAP on Runx2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphical abstract Abstract It was widely accepted that polymeric nanodrugs held superiority in enhancing antitumor efficacy, reducing side effect and achieving better long-term prognosis. However, there still existed disputes that whether their therapeutic efficiency was closely related to insure effective release of hydrophobic drug located in their hydrophobic core in tumor site. In order to investigate this controversy, we constructed two polymeric nanodrugs (pH-activatable sLMWH-UOA and non-sensitive LMWH-UOA) with low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) and ursolic acid (UOA) for chemo-and anti-angiogenic combination therapy in hepatocellular carcinoma. The degradation ratio of pH-activatable sLMWH-UOA increased by 33% compared with non-sensitive LMWH-UOA in in vitro degradation study. Besides, confocal microscopy captured that sLMWH-UOA could effectively release drug in acidic microenvironment of lysosome while LMWH-UOA nearly could not. More importantly, in contrast with LMWH-UOA, sLMWH-UOA presented pH-dependent cytotoxicity, indicating that promoting drug release played a key role in enhancing the cytotoxicity of polymeric nanodrugs. Additionally, in vivo pharmacodynamic evaluation showed that although non-sensitive LMWH-UOA had benefited from enhanced tumor targeting drug delivery ability to achieve absolute advantage over free drug combination therapy in antitumor combination therapy, sLMWH-UOA could acquire further optimized combined therapeutic effect with better drug release in tumor. All above, application of tumor-triggered chemical bonds to construct polymeric nanodrugs held vast prospect for improving the therapeutic efficiency for tumor cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fe-doped β-Bi2O3 porous microspheres (Fe-Bi2O3) were fabricated by a facile hydrothermal method. The structures, morphology and optical properties of Fe-Bi2O3 samples were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The results from XRD analysis confirmed that a completed thermal conversion of the precursors to Fe doped β-Bi2O3 at the temperature of 375°C. The iron ions is substitution for Bi3+ in the Bi2O3 lattice structure with the presence of Fe3+, which proved by the XPS. The SEM observations exhibited that the morphology of the as-prepared photocatalysts was porous microspheres. According to the results of UV-vis spectra, the Fe-doped β-Bi2O3 microspheres demonstrated a strong visible-light absorbance in the wavelength range of 420-600nm. Under visible light irradiation (λ>420nm), Fe-doped β-Bi2O3 photocatalysts with the content of 4mol% displayed highest photocatalytic activity for the Methyl Orange (MO) photodegradation. The mechanism for the enhanced photocatalytic activity of Fe-doped β-Bi2O3 photocatalysts was also proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The steady and dynamic rheological behaviors of sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (NaCMC) entangled semi-dilute solution filled with different concentrations of dodecyl-trimethylammonium bromide (C12TAB) were investigated. The results reveal that the zero shear rate viscosity (η 0) and dynamic modules (G′and G″) increase with C12TAB concentration (Cs ), and there exist three scaling regions divided by two critical C12TAB concentrations (C 1, C 2 and , respectively, from steady and dynamic tests). The increase of viscosity and modules with Cs is ascribed to formation of network due to C12TAB micelles bridging NaCMC chains. The two critical C12TAB concentrations implies that the structure evolution of NaCMC–C12TAB complex is exposed to three states with increasing Cs , i.e., no network formation, network extent progressive formation and perfect network formation, respectively. Moreover, are a little lower than C 1, C 2, indicating that the dynamic test is more sensitive to detect the structure change of the complex as compared with steady test. Furthermore, it is found that as NaCMC concentration increases, , and increase. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Random set filter for ballistic target tracking in complex environments. • Measurement-driven algorithm to adaptively generate the new birth target intensity. • Measurement set pre-processing method to eliminate the interference of clutter. • A new GM-PHD filter and its application in ballistic target tracking. In this paper, a new filter named measurement-driven sequential random sample consensus Gaussian mixture probability hypothesis density (MD-S-RANSAC-GM-PHD) filter is proposed for estimating the trajectory of a ballistic target during its coast phase. Unlike the traditional multiple-target tracking (MTT) algorithms that require data association, the proposed method involves modelling the respective collections of targets and measurements as random finite sets (RFS) and applying the PHD recursion to propagate the posterior intensity in time. To generate the new birth target intensity adaptively, a measurement-driven birth intensity estimation algorithm is developed. Since the measurement set used for birth intensity estimation may contain a large amount of clutter, a measurement set pre-processing method based on density-based spatial clustering and sequential random sample consensus (S-RANSAC) algorithm is proposed to eliminate the interference of clutter on generating new target birth intensity. Specifically, the proposed filter extends the standard GM-PHD filter by distinguishing between the persistent and the newborn target, and the extended Kalman filter (EKF) implementation of our proposed filter for ballistic target tracking is also derived. Simulation results illustrate the advantages of our proposed filter in tracking ballistic missile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]