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Background: Little research has been done on the connection between functional status and acupuncture efficacy; however, functional status is a key factor in the study of acupuncture efficacy. Therefore, we have tried to compare functional dyspepsia (FD) patients with healthy subjects (HS) to determine the different cerebral responses elicited by acupuncture stimulation at Zusanli (ST36). Patients and Methods: In this study, 24 FD patients and 24 HS were given acupuncture stimulation at ST36 while being monitored by an fMRI scan. Results: Compared with HS, FD patients showed an fMRI signal decrease in the right anterior cingulate cortex, right medial prefrontal cortex, right orbitofrontal cortex, left superior occipital gyrus, and right cuneus; but on the other hand, there was an fMRI signal increase in the right insula, right postcentral gyrus, and right supramarginal gyrus. Conclusion: Acupuncture stimulation at ST36 evoked pronounced changes, especially in the homeostatic afferent processing network of FD patients, compared to HS. We hypothesize that the cerebral responses elicited by acupuncture stimulation in certain diseases, such as FD are correlated to specific regions. The action of stimulating acupoints might be dynamic; the functional status is therefore an essential impact factor for cerebral responses to acupuncture stimulation. © 2014 S. Karger GmbH, Freiburg [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have provided evidence of structural and task-related functional changes in the brains of patients with migraine without aura. Resting-state brain activity in patients with migraine provides clues to the pathophysiology of the disease. However, few studies have focused on the resting-state abnormalities in patients with migraine without aura. In the current study, we employed a data-driven method, regional homogeneity (ReHo), to analyze the local features of spontaneous brain activity in patients with migraine without aura during the resting state. Twenty-six patients with migraine without aura and 26 age-, education- and gender-matched healthy volunteers participated in this study. Compared with healthy controls, patients with migraine without aura showed a significant decrease in ReHo values in the right rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), the prefrontal cortex (PFC), the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and the supplementary motor area (SMA). In addition, we found that ReHo values were negatively correlated with the duration of disease in the right rACC and PFC. Our results suggest that the resting-state abnormalities of these regions may be associated with functional impairments in pain processing in patients with migraine without aura. We hope that our results will improve the understanding of migraine. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A photopolymer formulation sensitive to 325 nm ultraviolet light is proposed for the fabrication of polymer gratings based on photopolymerization-induced internal diffusion process. A very low surface relief depth ranging from 12.4 to about 1.0 nm has been demonstrated with a refractive index modulation Δn of about 0.010. Such polymer gratings show promising potentials for the fabrication of low-order distributed feedback polymer lasers. © 2004 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Novel fluorescent probes were constructed for the convenient and rapid analysis of Cu2+ ions, taking advantages of the the triphenylamine backbone as chromophore and acylhydrazone group as the Cu2+ recognition site. Especially, probe T2 could act as a dual-channel probe towards Cu2+ through both fluorescent and colorimetric method. Through the fluorescent method, the detection limit of probe T2 was calculated to be as low as 90 nmol/L and there was a good linear relationship between the intensity change and the concentration of Cu2+ ions. By virtue of the two-phase liquid-liquid extraction method, probe T2 could be successfully applied in practical extraction and separation of Cu2+. Furthermore, by applying a “turn-off-turn-on” circle, compound T2 could act as a sensitive probe towards S2− anions through the indirect approach and the detection limit of complex T2-Cu2+ for S2− anion was found to be 110 nmol/L. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Multiple diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) derived indices may help to deduce the pathophysiological type of white matter (WM) changes and provide more specific biomarkers of WM neuropathology in the whole brain of migraine patients without aura (MWoA). Methods: Twenty MWoA and 20 age-, education- and gender-matched healthy volunteers participated in this study. Tractbased spatial statistics (TBSS) was employed to investigate the WM abnormalities in MWoA by integrating multiple indices, including fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), radial diffusivity (RD), and axial diffusivity (AD). Results: Compared with healthy controls, MWoA showed significantly lower FA, MD and AD in multiple brain regions, whereas no difference in RD was observed. Specifically, the overlap among the lower FA, MD, and AD was found in the genu, body, and splenium part of the corpus callosum (CC), the right anterior limb of the internal capsule (ALIC) and the posterior limb of the internal capsule (PLIC) in MWoA compared with healthy controls. Additionally, some of the above WM findings were significantly correlated with duration and headache frequency in MWoA. Conclusion: Given that decreased AD may suggest axonal loss, our findings may reveal axonal loss in MWoA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Previous neuroimaging studies have demonstrated both structural and functional damages in heroin-dependent individuals. However, few studies investigated gray matter deficits and abnormal resting-state networks together in heroin-dependent individuals. In the present study, voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was used to identify brain regions with gray matter density reduction. Resting-state fMRI connectivity analysis was employed to assess potential functional abnormalities during resting-state. All clinical significances were investigated by examining their association with duration of heroin use. Compared with healthy subjects, heroin-dependent individuals showed significant reduction in gray matter density in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and a decrease in resting-state functional connectivity between the right DLPFC and left inferior parietal lobe (IPL). The gray matter density of the right DLPFC and its resting-state functional connectivity with the left IPL both showed significantly negative correlation with duration of heroin use, which were likely to be related to the functional impairments in decision-making and cognitive control exhibited by heroin-dependent individuals. Our findings demonstrated that long heroin dependence impairs the right DLPFC in heroin-dependent individuals, including structural deficits and resting-state functional impairments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• ECT electrical field mainly distributed in medial temporal and prefrontal gyrus. • Baseline function of regions covered by strong electric fields predict ECT efficacy. • A longitudinal change was found in connectivity between amygdala and hippocampus. This study explored imaging predictors of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) outcome in schizophrenia patients based on pre-treatment functional connectivity (FC) within regions with strong ECT electric fields distribution. Forty-seven patients received standard antipsychotic drugs combined with ECT as well as two brain imaging sessions. Regions of interest (ROI) with strong electric field distribution were determined by ECT simulation. Using baseline functional connectivity between ROIs, a model was constructed to predict the percentage reduction of Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) scores. The strong electric fields were distributed in the orbital prefrontal lobe, medial temporal lobe, and other parts of the temporal lobe. Ten functional connectivity features within the electric field distribution areas showed a predictive ability for ECT outcome. The correlation coefficient between the predictive and real values of cross-validation was 0.7165. Among the predictive features, ECT induced a significant decrease in functional connectivity between the right amygdala and the left hippocampus. These results suggest that pretreatment functional connectivity patterns in brain regions with strong electric field distributions during ECT could be potential predictors of the efficacy of ECT augmentation in schizophrenia. These findings may help to improve individualized clinical treatment in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Four cooling episodes are revealed by multiple mineral chronometers. • Two stages of slow exhumation at rates of ~48–64 m/Ma and ~9–16 m/Ma are estimated since late Triassic. • At least 8 km thickness of cover has been removed from above the Tuwu-Yandong porphyry Cu deposits. • Thick burial and slow exhumation are two key factors for preservation of the ancient porphyry systems. The Carboniferous Tuwu-Yandong porphyry Cu deposits, located in the eastern Tianshan, are the largest porphyry Cu deposits in the Xinjiang province, China. This work presents new zircon and apatite fission track (ZFT and AFT) data from this porphyry Cu deposit, combined with inverse thermal modeling and previously published ages to reveal their preservation condition and exhumation history. Specifically, four cooling episodes are recognized: rapid cooling (24–44 °C/Ma) during the early Carboniferous (340–332 Ma), thick burial (>4 km) and reheating from the late Carboniferous to late Triassic, slow cooling (1.45–2.21 °C/Ma) from the late Triassic to the Paleocene and final protracted slow cooling (0.47–0.28 °C/Ma) from Paleocene to the present day. The first phase of cooling can be mainly attributed to magmatic heat transfer and thermal relaxation, whereas the second reheating phase was likely related to post-deposition burial. The latter two phases of cooling were predominantly controlled by uplift and denudation processes. Overall, our results indicate that the Tuwu-Yandong porphyry Cu deposits experienced two stages of slow post-burial exhumation at rates of ~48–64 m/Ma and ~9–16 m/Ma, respectively. We estimate that at least 8 km thickness of cover has been removed from above the Tuwu-Yandong porphyry Cu deposits. We conclude that early thick burial and later extremely slow exhumation were two key factors that led to preservation of this ancient porphyry system (i.e. Tuwu-Yandong porphyry Cu deposit). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extra spindle-polar body like 1 (ESPL1) is associated with the development of a variety of cancers, including bladder cancer, and is closely related to chemoresistance. In this study, we aimed to reveal the role of ESPL1 in bladder cancer progression and cisplatin (DDP) resistance. First, ESPL1 was found to be highly expressed in tumor tissues and cells of bladder cancer, and more highly expressed in cisplatin resistant tumor tissues or cells. The binding of PAX2 in ESPL1 promoter region was predicted by Jaspar database and verified by Ch-IP analysis and the luciferase reporter gene assay. Next, cisplatin-resistant T24 cells (T24/DDP) were established and transfected with ESPL1 siRNA (si-ESPL1) or overexpression vector (pcDNA-ESPL1) or co-transfected with PAX2 siRNA (si-PAX2) or overexpression vector (pcDNA-PAX2), and then treated with DDP or AG490, an inhibitor of JAK2. The results showed that silencing ESPL1 significantly reduced T24/DDP cell viability, colony formation and invasion, enhanced sensitivity to DDP, and induced cell apoptosis. Silencing PAX2 decreased ESPL1 expression, enhanced sensitivity to DDP, and induced apoptosis of T24/DDP cells, and inhibited activation of JAK2/STAT3 pathway. Overexpressing ESPL1 reversed the effect of PAX2 silencing on T24/DDP cells, while AG490 counteracted the reversal effect of overexpressing ESPL1. Finally, a xenograft tumor model was established and found that silencing ESPL1 or DDP treatment inhibited tumor growth, while silencing ESPL1 combined with DDP treatment had the best effect. In summary, this study suggested that PAX2-mediated ESPL1 transcriptional activation enhanced cisplatin resistance in bladder cancer by activating JAK2/STAT3 pathway., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Introduction: Stiff neck is a condition mainly characterised by persistent pain and limited neck movement, which can substantially impact patients' daily lives during acute episodes. Accordingly, rapid pain relief and restoration of normal activities are the main needs of patients during doctor visits. This study aims to assess the immediate efficacy of acupuncture combined with active exercises in rapidly relieving pain and improving movement disorders within 10 min in patients with acute stiff neck (ASN)., Methods and Analysis: This randomised controlled clinical trial is being conducted at a single centre in China. 120 participants diagnosed with ASN will randomly be assigned in a 1:1:1 ratio to one of three groups: the acupuncture combined with active exercise group (group A), sham acupuncture combined with active exercise group (group B) and active exercise only group (group C). Each participant will undergo a single 10 min session. The primary outcome is the effective rate at 10 min of treatment. Secondary outcomes include the effective rate at other time points (0-1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 min), Visual Analogue Scale score and cervical range of motion. The intention-to-treat analysis will include all randomised participants., Ethics and Dissemination: Ethics approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Yunnan University of Chinese Medicine (2022-009). Written informed consent will be obtained from all participants before randomisation. The findings of this study will be disseminated through publication in a peer-reviewed journal and presentation at conferences., Trial Registration Number: ChiCTR2200066997., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Purpose: This study aims to improve brain age estimation by developing a novel deep learning model utilizing overnight electroencephalography (EEG) data., Methods: We address limitations in current brain age prediction methods by proposing a model trained and evaluated on multiple cohort data, covering a broad age range. The model employs a one-dimensional Swin Transformer to efficiently extract complex patterns from sleep EEG signals and a convolutional neural network with attentional mechanisms to summarize sleep structural features. A multi-flow learning-based framework attentively merges these two features, employing sleep structural information to direct and augment the EEG features. A post-prediction model is designed to integrate the age-related features throughout the night. Furthermore, we propose a DecadeCE loss function to address the problem of an uneven age distribution., Results: We utilized 18,767 polysomnograms (PSGs) from 13,616 subjects to develop and evaluate the proposed model. The model achieves a mean absolute error (MAE) of 4.19 and a correlation of 0.97 on the mixed-cohort test set, and an MAE of 6.18 years and a correlation of 0.78 on an independent test set. Our brain age estimation work reduced the error by more than 1 year compared to other studies that also used EEG, achieving the level of neuroimaging. The estimated brain age index demonstrated longitudinal sensitivity and exhibited a significant increase of 1.27 years in individuals with psychiatric or neurological disorders relative to healthy individuals., Conclusion: The multi-flow deep learning model proposed in this study, based on overnight EEG, represents a more accurate approach for estimating brain age. The utilization of overnight sleep EEG for the prediction of brain age is both cost-effective and adept at capturing dynamic changes. These findings demonstrate the potential of EEG in predicting brain age, presenting a noninvasive and accessible method for assessing brain aging., Competing Interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work., (© 2024 Zhang et al.)

Knee medial compartment osteoarthritis is effectively treated by a medial open-wedge high tibial osteotomy (MOWHTO). The feasibility and safety of MOWHTO for mild lateral meniscal tears are unknown. This study examined the feasibility and safety of knee joint weight-bearing line ratio (WBLr) adjustment during MOWHTO with lateral meniscal injuries. We used a healthy adult male's lower extremities computed tomography scans and knee joint magnetic resonance imaging images to create a normal fine element (FE) model. Based on this model, we generated nine FE models for the MOWHTO operation (WBLr: 40-80%) and 15 models for various lateral meniscal injuries. A compressive load of 650N was applied to all cases to calculate the von Mises stress (VMS), and the intact lateral meniscus' maximal VMS at 77.5% WBLr was accepted as the corrective upper limit stress. Our experimental results show that mild lateral meniscal tears can withstand MOWHTO, while severe tears cannot. Our findings expand the use of MOWHTO and provide a theoretical direction for practical decisions in patients with lateral meniscal injuries.

Introduction: Vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) can be used to modulate gastrointestinal motility, inflammation, and nociception. However, it remains unclear whether VNS is effective in adult patients with functional dyspepsia (FD). We investigated the effectiveness of transcutaneous auricular VNS (taVNS) in patients with FD., Methods: Consecutive patients with FD meeting Rome IV criteria with modified FD Symptom Diary score ≥10 were enrolled. Patients were randomly allocated to 10-Hz taVNS (V10 group), 25-Hz taVNS (V25 group), or sham group, with 30 minutes of treatment twice a day for 4 weeks. The primary outcome was the response rate at week 4, defined as the proportion of patients whose modified FD Symptom Diary score was reduced ≥5 when compared with the baseline. Secondary outcomes included adequate relief rate and adverse events., Results: A total of 300 patients were randomized to V10 (n = 101), V25 (n = 99), and sham groups (n = 100). After 4 weeks of treatment, V10 and V25 groups had a higher response rate (81.2% vs 75.9% vs 47%, both P < 0.001) and adequate relief rate (85.1% vs 80.8% vs 67%, both P < 0.05) compared with the sham group. There was no significant difference between V10 and V25 in response rate and adequate relief rate (both P > 0.05). The efficacy of taVNS (both 10 and 25 Hz) lasted at week 8 and week 12 during follow-up period. Adverse events were all mild and comparable among the 3 groups (1%-3%)., Discussion: Our study firstly showed that 4-week taVNS (both 10 and 25 Hz) was effective and safe for the treatment of adult FD ( clinicaltrials.gov number: NCT04668534)., (Copyright © 2023 by The American College of Gastroenterology.)

Novel fluorescent probes were constructed for the convenient and rapid analysis of Cu 2+  ions, taking advantages of the the triphenylamine backbone as chromophore and acylhydrazone group as the Cu 2+ recognition site. Especially, probe T2 could act as a dual-channel probe towards Cu 2+ through both fluorescent and colorimetric method. Through the fluorescent method, the detection limit of probe T2 was calculated to be as low as 90 nmol/L and there was a good linear relationship between the intensity change and the concentration of Cu 2+ ions. By virtue of the two-phase liquid-liquid extraction method, probe T2 could be successfully applied in practical extraction and separation of Cu 2+ . Furthermore, by applying a "turn-off-turn-on" circle, compound T2 could act as a sensitive probe towards S 2- anions through the indirect approach and the detection limit of complex T2-Cu 2+ for S 2- anion was found to be 110 nmol/L., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Introduction: Migraine is a widespread neurological disorder characterised by recurrent moderate-to-severe headaches. These headaches can seriously affect patients' daily life and work, especially during acute attacks when patients often need immediate pain relief. This study aims to assess the immediate analgesic effect of acupuncture for 10 min during acute migraine attacks., Methods and Analysis: The study will randomly divide 80 participants into either the acupuncture group or the sham acupuncture group with an allocation ratio of 1:1. Each group will receive 10 min of treatment, and the post-treatment evaluation will be performed after 0, 0-2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 min of acupuncture. The primary outcome is the pain Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) score assessed before and after treatment at 10 min. Additionally, secondary outcomes include the pain VAS score assessed at 0-2, 4, 6 and 8 min, blinding assessment and treatment effectiveness expectations scale. Data will be collected at baseline time and the end of treatment (after 10 min). Adverse events during each treatment period will be collected and recorded., Ethics and Dissemination: Ethics approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Yunnan University of Chinese Medicine (2022-008). All participants will provide written informed consent before randomisation. The results of this study will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and presented at conferences., Trial Registration Number: Chinese Clinical Trial Registration Center (ChiCTR2200066976)., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Combination therapy with antipsychotics has been investigated for treating schizophrenia, and has shown clear advantages among non-invasive therapies. Transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) is a novel non-invasive treatment with definite efficacy in treating mental disorders. The current study aimed to investigate the efficacy of TEAS in further improving the psychotic symptoms in patients with first-episode schizophrenia (FES) being treated with pharmacological drugs. This 8-week, preliminary, sham-controlled, randomized clinical trial was conducted in patients with FES to compare the efficacy of TEAS and sham TEAS in combination with aripiprazole treatment. The primary outcome was a change in the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) score after ending the intervention (Week 8). A total of 49 participants completed the whole treatment cycle. The linear mixed-effects regression for PANSS indicated a significant time × group interaction (F(2, 116)=9.79, p <0.001). The PANSS score differed by 8.77 points (95% CI, -2.07 to -15.47 points; p=.01) between the TEAS group and the sham TEAS group after 8 weeks of treatment; this difference was significant. This study indicates that 8 weeks of TEAS combined with aripiprazole treatment can effectively treat FES. Thus, TEAS is an effective combination therapy to improve the psychiatric symptoms of FES., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors of this manuscript declare that they have no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: Automatic sleep staging is a classification process with severe class imbalance and suffers from instability of scoring stage N1. Decreased accuracy in classifying stage N1 significantly impacts the staging of individuals with sleep disorders. We aim to achieve automatic sleep staging with expert-level performance in both N1 stage and overall scoring., Methods: A neural network model combines an attention-based convolutional neural network and a classifier with two branches is developed. A transitive training strategy is employed to balance universal feature learning and contextual referencing. Parameter optimization and benchmark comparisons are conducted using a large-scale dataset, followed by evaluation on seven datasets in five cohorts., Results: The proposed model achieves an accuracy of 88.16%, Cohen's kappa of 0.836, and MF1 score of 0.818 on the SHHS1 test set, also with comparable performance to human scorers in scoring stage N1. Incorporating multiple cohort data improves its performance. Notably, the model maintains high performance when applied to unseen datasets and patients with neurological or psychiatric disorders., Discussion: The proposed algorithm demonstrates strong performance and generalizablility, and its direct transferability is noteworthy among similar studies on automated sleep staging. It is publicly available, which is conducive to expanding access to sleep-related analysis, especially those associated with neurological or psychiatric disorders., 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 © 2023 Zhang, Sun, She, Cui, Zeng, Lu, Tang, Xu, Chen and Qin.)

Background: The incidence of nephrolithiasis is increasing rapidly worldwide. Calcium oxalate is the most common constituent, contributing to approximately 80% of all kidney stones. The gut microbiome, through its oxalate-degrading ability, may play a role in decreasing morbidity due to urinary calculus. Fecal microbiome transplantation (FMT) has been reported to be effective in restoring the gastrointestinal microbial community in different conditions. The transplantation of whole communities that have oxalate-degrading function may be a more effective strategy than the transplantation of isolated strains., Methods: FMT was carried out in male guinea pigs and male Sprague-Dawley laboratory rats (SDRs). Fresh feces were collected from guinea pigs housed in metabolic cages. SDRs were divided into four groups: two groups received standard rat chow (SC) (groups SC and SC + FMT), and two groups were fed a 5% potassium oxalate diet (OD) (groups OD + phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) and OD + FMT). On day 14, groups OD + PBS, OD + FMT, and SC + FMT received either PBS or guinea pig feces by esophageal gavage. The composition of the microbiota of guinea pigs and SDRs was analyzed using a 16S rRNA gene sequencing approach. Biochemical analysis of urine samples from SDRs revealed the presence of calcium oxalate (CaOx) crystals, which were presumed to originate from kidney stones. Renal function was examined using real-time PCR analysis and immunohistochemical staining for renin, angiotensin-converting enzyme, and osteopontin (OPN) expression., Results: FMT resulted in a gut microbiota that was a mixture of guinea pig and SDR bacteria. A microbial network involving Muribaculaceae, Lactobacillus , and Bifidobacterium was activated by FMT in group OD + FMT. As a result, urinary oxalate, calcium, uric acid, creatinine and urea in urine samples were reduced significantly. Similarly, significant reduction of uric acid and blood urea nitrogen to creatinine ratio in serum samples was observed ( p < 0.05). Microscopic observations revealed a high CaOx crystal score (4+) in the kidneys of rats in group OD + PBS, whereas a lower score (2+) was observed in the rats in group OD + FMT. Up-regulation of OPN and down-regulation of renin were also associated with FMT., Conclusion: A microbial network involving Muribaculaceae and other oxalate-degrading bacteria achieved by FMT was capable of reducing urinary oxalate excretion and CaOx crystal deposition in the kidney through increasing intestinal oxalate degradation. FMT may exert a renoprotective function in oxalate-related kidney stones., 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 © 2023 Wang, Sun, Xie, Zhou, Wang, Liu, Li, Gao and Pan.)

AhFAD2 is a key enzyme catalyzing the conversion of oleic acid into linoleic acid. The high oleic acid characteristic of peanut mainly comes from the homozygous recessive mutation of AhFAD2A and AhFAD2B genes (aabb). However, even in high-oleic-acid varieties with the aabb genotype, the oleic acid content of seeds with different maturity varies significantly. Therefore, in addition to AhFAD2A and AhFAD2B , other FAD2 members or regulators may be involved in this process. Which FAD2 genes are involved in the regulatory processes associated with seed maturity is still unclear. In this study, four stable lines with different genotypes (AABB, aaBB, AAbb, and aabb) were used to analyze the contents of oleic acid and linoleic acid at different stages of seed development in peanut. Three new AhFAD2 genes ( AhFAD2-7 , AhFAD2-8 , and AhFAD2-9 ) were cloned based on the whole-genome sequencing results of cultivated peanuts. All peanut FAD2 genes showed tissue preference in expression; however, only the expression level of AhFAD2-7 was positively correlated with the linoleic acid concentration in peanut seeds. These findings provide new insights into the regulation of oleic acid accumulation by maturity, and AhFAD2-7 plays an important role in the maturity dependent accumulation of oleic acid and linoleic acid in peanut.

Epidemiological studies suggested that PM2.5 (particle matters with an aerodynamic diameter ≤2.5 μm) exposure is associated with atherosclerosis. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are messengers between intracellular communications which are important in diseases procession. At present, whether EVs derived from PM2.5-exposed alveolar epithelial cells (P-EVs) involve in atherosclerosis has not been clearly understood. This study is performed to investigate the effects of P-EVs on the development of endothelium adhesion and atherosclerosis. Here, ApoE -/- mice were randomized into different groups receiving one of the following treatments, filtered air (FA), PM2.5, PBS, PBS-treated alveolar epithelial cells-derived EVs (EVs), or P-EVs. Then the atherosclerosis level in aortas or aorta sections was evaluated by oil red O staining. The results indicated that ApoE -/- mice treated with P-EVs or PM2.5 showed more obvious atherosclerosis plaques in aortas and aortic arches than those treated with EVs or PBS. Endothelial cells (ECs) were treated with PBS, EVs, P-EVs, or PM2.5. The adhesion property, miRNAs level and expressions of IκBα, phosphorylated IκBα, NF-κB p65, phosphorylated NF-κB p65, and VCAM1 in ECs were determined. It was found that P-EVs activated IκBα-NF-κB-VCAM1 signaling and increased adhesion of ECs, and such effects could be reversed by adalimumab (the TNF-α inhibitor) or miR-326-3p inhibitor. Further study suggested that P-EVs induced upregulation of TNF-α and miR-326-3p in recipient ECs and contributed to the phosphorylation of NF-κB p65. Collectively, EVs derived from PM2.5-exposed alveolar epithelial cells played an important role in the development of atherosclerosis via activating IκBα-NF-κB-VCAM1 signaling., (© 2022 The Authors. The FASEB Journal published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.)

Background: Although ongoing development of therapeutic strategies contributes to the improvements in clinical management, clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) deaths originate mainly from radiochemoresistant and metastatic disease. Transcription factor SALL4 has been implicated in tumorigenesis and metastasis of multiple cancers. However, it is not known whether SALL4 is involved in the pathogenesis of ccRCC., Methods: Analyses of clinical specimen and publicly available datasets were performed to determine the expression level and clinical significance of SALL4 in ccRCC. The influence of SALL4 expression on ccRCC tumor growth, metastasis and vascularity was evaluated through a series of in vitro and in vivo experiments. Western blotting, immunofluorescence staining and integrative database analysis were carried out to investigate the underlying mechanism for SALL4-mediated oncogenic activities in ccRCC., Results: SALL4 expression was increased in ccRCC and positively correlated with tumor progression and poor prognosis. SALL4 could promote ccRCC cell proliferation, colony formation, cell cycle progression, migration, invasion and tumorigenicity and inhibit cell senescence. Further investigation revealed a widespread association of SALL4 with individual gene transcription and the involvement of SALL4 in endothelium development and vasculogenesis. In the context of ccRCC, SALL4 promoted tumor vascularization by recruiting endothelial cells. In addition, we found that SALL4 could exert its tumor-promoting effect via modulating Akt/GSK-3β axis and VEGFA expression. VHL mutation and DNA hypomethylation may be involved in the upregulation of SALL4 in ccRCC., Conclusions: Overall, our results provide evidence that upregulated SALL4 can function as a crucial regulator of tumor pathogenesis and progression in ccRCC, thus offering potential therapeutic strategies for future treatment.

Background: Plant height, mainly decided by main stem height, is the major agronomic trait and closely correlated to crop yield. A number of studies had been conducted on model plants and crops to understand the molecular and genetic basis of plant height. However, little is known on the molecular mechanisms of peanut main stem height., Results: In this study, a semi-dwarf peanut mutant was identified from 60 Co γ-ray induced mutant population and designated as semi-dwarf mutant 2 (sdm2). The height of sdm2 was only 59.3% of its wild line Fenghua 1 (FH1) at the mature stage. The sdm2 has less internode number and short internode length to compare with FH1. Gene expression profiles of stem and leaf from both sdm2 and FH1 were analyzed using high throughput RNA sequencing. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were involved in hormone biosynthesis and signaling pathways, cell wall synthetic and metabolic pathways. BR, GA and IAA biosynthesis and signal transduction pathways were significantly enriched. The expression of several genes in BR biosynthesis and signaling were found to be significantly down-regulated in sdm2 as compared to FH1. Many transcription factors encoding genes were identified as DEGs., Conclusions: A large number of genes were found differentially expressed between sdm2 and FH1. These results provide useful information for uncovering the molecular mechanism regulating peanut stem height. It could facilitate identification of causal genes for breeding peanut varieties with semi-dwarf phenotype.

Several studies have investigated the trait-like characteristics of conflict processing at different levels. Our study extends these findings by reporting a practice-based improvement in within-trial conflict processing across two sessions. Eighty-three participants performed the same flanker task on two occasions 2 weeks apart. A subset of 37 subjects also underwent diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) scanning the day before the first behavioral task. Despite the trait-like characteristics of conflict processing, within-trial conflict processing in the second behavioral session was significantly shorter than that in the first session, indicating a practice-based improvement in conflict processing. Furthermore, changes in within-trial conflict processing across the two sessions exhibited significant individual differences. Tract-based spatial statistics revealed that the improvement across two sessions was related to the axial diffusivity values in white matter regions, including the body and splenium of the corpus callosum, right superior and posterior corona radiate, and right superior longitudinal fasciculus. Subsequently, lasso regression with leave-one-out cross validation was used to assess the predictive ability of white matter microstructural characteristics in significant regions. The results showed that 61% of individual variability in the improvement in the within-trial conflict processing could be explained by variations in the axial diffusivity values in the four significant regions and the within-trial conflict processing in the first session. These results suggest that axonal morphology in the white tracts connecting conflict-related regions predicts the degree of within-trial conflict processing improvement across two sessions.

The effects of sleep deprivation (SD) on the neural substrates of inhibition control are poorly understood. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the effects of 24 h of SD on cerebral activation during a stop-signal task in 20 normal young subjects. Behaviorally, subjects showed significantly delayed stop-signal reaction time (SSRT) following SD. In addition, reduced cerebral activation was found in the "stopping network" (including the inferior frontal gyrus [IFG], supplementary motor area, subthalamic nucleus [STN] and insula) and vision-related regions (occipital cortex, lingual gyrus and fusiform gyrus) after SD. These findings support the hypothesis that task-related activation in prefrontal cortex is particularly vulnerable to SD. After rested wakefulness (RW), significant negative correlations were found between SSRT and cerebral activation in left IFG, right hippocampus, right lingual gyrus, left STN and bilateral fusiform gyrus, with activation in left IFG making the most contribution. After SD, significant negative correlations were found between SSRT and activation in right middle frontal cortex, right IFG and left lingual gyrus, with the activation in right IFG making the most contribution. Furthermore, we observed significant interaction effects of state (SD or RW) with activation in bilateral IFG, left STN and left lingual gyrus on SSRT. In conclusion, sleep deprivation is associated with the deficits in inhibition-related neural activation and the altered correlation between SSRT and cerebral activation, especially in the bilateral IFG, left STN and left lingual gyrus.

Background: Type II superior labrum anterior and posterior (SLAP) lesions could induce chronic shoulder pain and impaired movement. Current management of Type II SLAP lesions consists of two well-established surgical procedures: arthroscopic biceps tenodesis and SLAP repair. However, which technique is preferred over the other is still a controversy., Methods: We performed a systematic electronic database search on Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, MEDLINE and Embase to identify articles equating superior labral repair with biceps tenodesis, which were reported before August 2017 which included the phrase "superior labral anterior posterior" or "SLAP." The randomised controlled clinical trials that met our criteria were evaluated for quality of methodology. The results obtained were further analysed and correlated to present the benefits and drawbacks comparing the two SLAP repair surgical procedures., Result: Based on our inclusion and exclusion criteria, we identified five articles (204 patients) that were included in this meta-analysis. The results indicate that prevalence of patients return to preinjury sports level and the patients satisfaction were found to be significantly better in tenodesis group than in the SLAP repair group ( p  < 0.05). As for the patient age, VAS score, American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons score, University of California at Los Angeles score, postoperative stiffness and reoperation rates, no significant differences were evident among the two groups, thus supporting the results reported in the current literatures ( p  > 0.05)., Conclusions: Both the surgical treatments, SLAP repair and the biceps tenodesis, are efficacious in pain alleviation and recovery of shoulder function. But, compared with SLAP repair, biceps tenodesis showed higher rate of patient satisfaction and return to preinjury sports participation., The Translational Potential of This Article: Impart better understanding regarding discrepancies in the outcomes between biceps tenodesis and SLAP repair in treating patients with isolated Type II SLAP lesions.