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Periodontitis is closely related to many systemic diseases. Cancer of the digestive system is a common malignant tumor. Increasing evidence has shown that periodontitis is related to various digestive system cancers. This review summarizes the current research on the relationship between periodontitis and esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, and colorectal cancer and analyzes the possible mechanisms, including via microorganisms, immunity, inflammation, and genes. The content of periodontal pathogens and Helicobacter pylori in the mouth of patients with periodontitis is increased, with the secretion of many virulence factors and pathogenic enzymes and inhibition or evasion of the host’s non-specific immune function, making the digestive system organs connected to the oral cavity more vulnerable to cancer cell invasion. The plasma levels of interleukin-1β(IL-1β) , interleukin-6(IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α) in patients with periodontitis and digestive system cancers are increased. These elevated factors promote the occurrence and development of cancer by activating endothelial cells, increasing the expression of adhesion molecules and inducing the production of matrix metalloproteinases. Additionally, formyl peptide receptors involved in the inflammatory response and NF-κB, as therapeutic targets of periodontitis, are associated with many cancers, but the mechanism is unclear. Periodontal health is considered a breakthrough point to provide a reference for the prevention and treatment of patients with these three common cancers of the digestive system.

Objective To compare the prevalence of dental caries and periodontal disease in patients with end-stage renal disease treated with maintenance hemodialysis with that in healthy controls and to investigate the relationship between end-stage renal disease, dental caries and periodontal disease.Methods A total of 82 maintenance hemodialysis patients who met the inclusion criteria were selected as the case group, and 86 healthy persons who underwent oral examination in the physical examination center were selected as the control group. Dental caries and periodontal conditions were examined in the two groups. The dental caries examination was conducted by determining the number of decayed-missing-filled teeth, which was recorded as recommended by the World Health Organization. The periodontal condition parameters included the plaque index, calculus index, bleeding on probing, periodontal pocket depth and clinical attachment loss.Results The prevalence of dental caries in the case group and healthy control group was 87.8% and 81.4%, respectively, and there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups (P > 0.05). The periodontal indexes, including the plaque index, calculus index, probe bleeding index, periodontal pocket depth and clinical attachment level, in the case group were significantly higher than those in the control group (P < 0.05), and the prevalence of periodontitis in the case group was significantly higher than that in the control group (97.6% vs 88.4%, P < 0.05).Conclusion The dental caries conditions were comparable between the case group and the control group, but the prevalence and severity of periodontitis were significantly higher in the case group than in the control group.

Discourse marker is a common language phenomenon in verbal communication including parts of conjunctions, adverbs, interjections, some phrases and small words. From the perspective of grammar, these modifiers do not have many a semantic meanings and they are less related to the sentences. However, from the perspective of pragmatics and discourse, discourse marker plays the role of organizing the discourse, attracting the hearer’s attention, and expressing the emotion and attitude of the speaker. In the process of utterance generation and understanding, discourse marker works as a signal or makes the information clear so that the hearer can obtain the communicative intention of the speaker easily, thus producing the contextual effect. Based on the framework of Relevance Theory by Sperber and Wilson, this essay adopts Fraser’s classification of discourse markers, analyzing the use of discourse markers by non-English majors in Guangxi region. The result of this research shows that discourse markers indeed play a crucial role in the process of utterance generation and understanding, and the correct use of discourse markers contributes to the cohesion of discourse or text and the improvement of the student’s writing ability.

Objective: To compare the personalities, social avoidance and distress, and anxiety status of Chinese patients with and without objective halitosis, and investigate the association among these psychological disorders. Methods: Patients who complained of bad breath and diagnosed with objective halitosis were enrolled into the halitosis group, while patients without objective halitosis were enrolled into the control group. The questionnaires included the sociodemographic profile of the participants, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (SAD), and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI). Results: A total of 280 patients were assigned into objective halitosis group (n = 146) and control group (n = 134). The extraversion subscales (E) score of the EPQ in the halitosis group were significantly lower than that in the control group (p = 0.001). The total SAD score and proportion of patients with anxiety symptoms in the BAI scale in the objective halitosis was significantly higher than that in the control group (p < 0.05). There was a negative correlation between the extraversion subscale and the total SAD score, Social Avoidance and Social Distress subscales (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Patients with objective halitosis have more introverted personality traits and are more likely to have social avoidance and distress than the nonhalitosis population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glioblastoma stem cells (GSCs) exert a crucial influence on glioblastoma (GBM) development, progression, resistance to therapy, and recurrence, making them an attractive target for drug discovery. UTX, a histone H3K27 demethylase, participates in regulating multiple cancer types. However, its functional role in GSCs remains insufficiently explored. This study aims to investigate the role and regulatory mechanism of UTX on GSCs. Analysis of TCGA data revealed heightened UTX expression in glioma, inversely correlating with overall survival. Inhibiting UTX suppressed GBM cell growth and induced apoptosis. Subsequently, we cultured primary GSCs from three patients, observing that UTX inhibition suppressed cell proliferation and induced apoptosis. RNA‐seq was performed to analyze the gene expression changes after silencing UTX in GSCs. The results indicated that UTX‐mediated genes were strongly correlated with GBM progression and regulatory tumor microenvironment. The transwell co‐cultured experiment showed that silencing UTX in the transwell chamber GSCs inhibited the well plate cell proliferation. Protein–protein interaction analysis revealed that periostin (POSTN) played a role in the UTX‐mediated transcriptional regulatory network. Replenishing POSTN reversed the effects of UTX inhibition on GSC proliferation and apoptosis. Our study demonstrated that UTX inhibition hindered POSTN expression by enhancing the H3K27me2/3 level, eventually resulting in inhibiting proliferation and promoting apoptosis of patient‐derived GSCs. Our findings may provide a novel and effective strategy for the treatment of GBM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Electrolyzed water (EW) is recognized as an effective way to control and reduce pathogens in vegetables. However, the disinfection efficacy of EW alone is limited. In this work, the bactericidal activity and biofilm removal capability of EW, generated by adding NaCl to a portable EW generator, were investigated with special reference to Listeria monocytogenes. Furthermore, the impact of EW in combination with dimethyl dicarbonate (DMDC) in reducing the microbial load and improving the overall quality of lettuce during refrigerated storage was evaluated. RESULTS: EW with 0.3% NaCl (SEW) had the highest bactericidal activity against L. monocytogenes. The pathogen treated with SEW exhibited lower superoxide dismutase activity and more leakage of proteins and nucleic acids than in the case of EW. Furthermore, the use of SEW resulted in changes in the cell permeability and morphology of L. monocytogenes. A decrease in adhesion and collapse of the biofilm architecture were also observed, indicating that SEW was more effective for inactivating L. monocytogenes cells compared to EW. For untreated lettuce, the populations of the total plate count and inoculated L. monocytogenes decreased by 2.47 and 2.35 log CFU g−1, respectively, after the combined SEW/DMDC treatment for 3 min. The use of SEW alone or combined with DMDC did not negatively impact the lettuce color values, titratable acid, ascorbic acid and soluble solids compared to the control group. CONCLUSION: SEW in combination with DMDC can be used as a novel and potentially effective disinfection strategy for ensuring the safety of vegetable consumption. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high-quality aluminum nitride (AlN) epilayer is the key factor that directly affects the performance of semiconductor deep-ultraviolet (DUV) photoelectronic devices. In this work, to investigate the influence of thickness on the quality of the AlN epilayer, two AlN-thick epi-film samples were grown on c-plane sapphire substrates. The optical and structural characteristics of AlN films are meticulously examined by using high-resolution X-ray diffraction (HR-XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), a dual-beam ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometer, and spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE). It has been found that the quality of AlN can be controlled by adjusting the AlN film thickness. The phenomenon, in which the thicker AlNn film exhibits lower dislocations than the thinner one, demonstrates that thick AlN epitaxial samples can work as a strain relief layer and, in the meantime, help significantly bend the dislocations and decrease total dislocation density with the thicker epi-film. The Urbach's binding energy and optical bandgap (Eg) derived by optical transmission (OT) and SE depend on crystallite size, crystalline alignment, and film thickness, which are in good agreement with XRD and SEM results. It is concluded that under the treatment of thickening film, the essence of crystal quality is improved. The bandgap energies of AlN samples obtained from SE possess larger values and higher accuracy than those extracted from OT. The Bose–Einstein relation is used to demonstrate the bandgap variation with temperature, and it is indicated that the thermal stability of bandgap energy can be improved with an increase in film thickness. It is revealed that when the thickness increases to micrometer order, the thickness has little effect on the change of Eg with temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]