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Molecular and genomic studies have revealed that Mycobacterium tuberculosis Lineage 4 (L4, Euro-American lineage) emerged in Europe before becoming distributed around the globe by trade routes, colonial migration and other historical connections. Although L4 accounts for tens or hundreds of thousands of tuberculosis (TB) cases in multiple Southeast Asian countries, phylogeographical studies have either focused on a single country or just included Southeast Asia as part of a global analysis. Therefore, we interrogated public genomic data to investigate the historical patterns underlying the distribution of L4 in Southeast Asia and surrounding countries. We downloaded 6037 genomes associated with 29 published studies, focusing on global analyses of L4 and Asian studies of M. tuberculosis . We identified 2256 L4 genomes including 968 from Asia. We show that 81 % of L4 in Thailand, 51 % of L4 in Vietnam and 9 % of L4 in Indonesia belong to sub-lineages of L4 that are rarely seen outside East and Southeast Asia (L4.2.2, L4.4.2 and L4.5). These sub-lineages have spread between East and Southeast Asian countries, with no recent European ancestor. Although there is considerable uncertainty about the exact direction and order of intra-Asian M. tuberculosis dispersal, due to differing sampling frames between countries, our analysis suggests that China may be the intermediate location between Europe and Southeast Asia for two of the three predominantly East and Southeast Asian L4 sub-lineages (L4.2.2 and L4.5). This new perspective on L4 in Southeast Asia raises the possibility of investigating host population-specific evolution and highlights the need for more structured sampling from Southeast Asian countries to provide more certainty of the historical and current routes of dispersal.

Peripheral neuropathy and associated factors in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in Vietnam: A cross-sectional study Diabetes peripheral neuropathy (DPN) is the most common complication associated with diabetes mellitus. We aimed to establish the characteristic and associated factors of DPN in Vietnam. In total, 140 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) were screened and enrolled consecutively over a six month period at the endocrinology department in 103 Military hospital. Questionnaires, demographic details, clinical examination, and blood tests were used to collect data from all patients. DPN was evaluated using diabetes neuropathy symptom score and nerve conduction study. Potential factors related to DPN were explored including body mass index, years with disease ( Disclosure N. T. T. Trang: None. T. Fong: None. T. D. Do: None.

Two-dimensional MoSi2N4 is an emerging class of 2D MA2N4 family, which has recently been synthesized in experiment. Herein, we construct ultrathin van der Waals heterostructures between graphene and a new 2D Janus MoGeSiN4 material and investigate their interfacial electronic properties and tunable Schottky barriers and contact types using first-principles calculations. The GR/MoGeSiN4 vdWHs are expected to be energetically favorable and stable. The high carrier mobility in graphene/MoGeSiN4 vdWHs makes them suitable for high-speed nanoelectronic devices. Furthermore, depending on the stacking patterns, either an n-type or a p-type Schottky contact is formed at the GR/MoGeSiN4 interface. The strain engineering and electric field can lead to the transformation from an n-type to a p-type Schottky contact or from Schottky to Ohmic contact in graphene/MoGeSiN4 heterostructure. These findings provide useful guidance for designing controllable Schottky nanodevices based on graphene/MoGeSiN4 heterostructures with high-performance.

Constructing van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures is an exciting method for tuning the electronic and optical properties and the photocatalytic performances of two-dimensional materials. In this work, we investigated the electronic, optical and photocatalytic properties of a blue phosphorene–BAs (BlueP–BAs) vdW heterostructure using first-principles calculations. We found that the most energetically favorable stacking pattern of the BAs–BlueP vdW heterostructure possesses a direct band gap with type-I band alignment. The absorption spectrum of the BAs–BlueP vdW heterostructure showed that the lower energy transitions are dominated by excitons. Furthermore, the photocatalytic performance of the BAs–BlueP vdW heterostructure makes it suitable for water splitting at pH = 0. Our findings demonstrated that the BlueP–BAs heterostructure is a good candidate for optoelectronic and photocatalytic devices.