Search

This study evaluated the anti-inflammation effect of the three main short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) on Acinetobacter baumannii-induced THP-1 cells. The three main SCFAs could inhibit A. baumannii-stimulated THP-1 cell NF-κB pathway activity and the expressions of NLRP3 inflamma-some and GSDMD, and increase autophagy. The three main SCFAs, especially the sodium butyrate (NaB), had the effect of down-regulation of ROS and TLR-2 expression in THP-1 cells. NaB and sodium propionate (NaPc), but not sodium acetate (NaAc), dramatically suppressed IL-1β and IFN-γ expression. The results indicated that NaB and NaPc could significantly inhibit the inflammation of THP-1 cells induced by A. baumannii, and the inhibitory effect was in the order of NaB > NaPc > NaAC. NaB and NaPc may inhibit inflammation through TLR-2/NF-κB/ROS/NLRP3 signaling pathway.

Abstract Background Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive subtype of breast cancer and is susceptible to develop gemcitabine (GEM) resistance. Decreased expression of human equilibrative nucleoside transporter 1 (hENT1) accompanied by compensatory increase of glycolysis is strongly associated with GEM resistance in TNBC. In this study, we investigated the treatment feasibility of combined hENT1 upregulation and miR-143-mediated inhibition of glycolysis for reversing GEM resistance in TNBC. Methods Experiments were performed in vitro and in vivo to compare the efficacy of GEM therapies. In this study, we established stable drug-resistant cell line, GEM-R cells, from parental cells (MDA-MB-231) through exposure to GEM following a stepwise incremental dosing strategy. Then GEM-R cells were transfected by lentiviral plasmids and GEM-R cells overexpressing hENT1 (GEM-R-hENT1) were established. The viability and apoptosis of wild-type (MDA-MB-231), GEM-R, and GEM-R-hENT1 cells treated with GEM or GEM + miR-143 were analyzed by CCK8 assay and flow cytometry. The RNA expression and protein expression were measured by RT-PCR and western blotting respectively. GEM uptake was determined by multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) analysis. Glycolysis was measured by glucose assay and 18F-FDG uptake. The antitumor effect was assessed in vivo in a tumor xenograft model by evaluating toxicity, tumor volume, and maximum standardized uptake value in 18F-FDG PET. Immunohistochemistry and fluorescence photography were taken in tumor samples. Pairwise comparisons were performed using Student’s t-test. Results Our results represented that overexpression of hENT1 reversed GEM resistance in GEM-R cells by showing lower IC50 and higher rate of apoptosis. MiR-143 suppressed glycolysis in GEM-R cells and enhanced the effect of reversing GEM resistance in GEM-R-hENT1 cells. The therapeutic efficacy was validated using a xenograft mouse model. Combination treatment decreased tumor growth rate and maximum standardized uptake value in 18F-FDG PET more effectively. Conclusions Combined therapy of exogenous upregulation of hENT1 expression and miR-143 mimic administration was effective in reversing GEM resistance, providing a promising strategy for treating GEM-resistant TNBC.

Abstract Osteosarcoma is a common malignant bone tumor characterized by the production of osteoid stroma by the tumor. However, effect of IGFBP4 and TAGLN on the survival of osteosarcoma is unclear. The GEO database was used to identify the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between control samples and osteosarcoma. Genes for biological process (BP), cellular composition (CC), and molecular function (MF) were examined using DAVID, Metascape, and GSEA. GSE14359 and GSE36001 were downloaded in the GEO database. GEO2R was used to find DEGs between control samples and osteosarcoma. The cytoHubb also found the hub genes of IGFBP4 and TAGLN. The Kaplan–Meier method was used to analyze overall survival. A total of 134 patients with osteosarcoma were enrolled in this study. The RNA levels of IGFBP4 and TAGLN were evaluated by RT-qPCR. The correlation between IGFBP4 and TAGLN expression and their associations with clinical indicators were analyzed using Spearman's rho test and Pearson's Chi-squared test. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were used to determine the potential prognostic factors. And the animal model was used to verify the role of hub genes on the osteosarcoma by the RT-qPCR and immunofluorescence. Support Vector Machine (SVM) was performed to construct the correlation among the expression of IGFBP4, TAGLN, and osteosarcoma. Through bioinformatics, IGFBP4 and TAGLN were identified as the hub genes of osteosarcoma. And osteosarcoma patients with high expression levels of IGFBP4 (HR = 0.56, P = 0.013) and TAGLN (HR = 0.52, P = 0.012) had better overall survival times than those with low expression levels. The results showed that pathologic grade (P = 0.017), tumor metastasis (P

Sound localization is one of the many learning tasks accomplished by the brain based on the binaural signals of the ears. Here, Wu et al demonstrate in-situ learning of sound localization function using a memristor array, with dramatic improvements in energy efficiency.

H13 die steel has the characteristics of high hardness, strong toughness, and good heat resistance, and is a typical difficult to process materials material. During the cutting process, it is prone to accelerate tool wear and cause thermal deformation. By reasonably designing micro-grooves, the comprehensive performance of the tool can be effectively improved. In this study, by optimizing the structural parameters of the micro-groove, the comprehensive performance of the tool is significantly improved, and the micro-groove optimization control mechanism is deeply analyzed. At the same time, the micro-damage problem is numerically analyzed by using the peridynamics numerical simulation and comparison experiment. Research results indicate that properly increasing the distance between the slot at the outer contour of the cutting tool and the cutting edge and projecting it in a flattened shape onto the surface of the tool, ensures a smooth transition between the groove top and bottom near the cutting edge can effectively enhance the comprehensive performance of the cutting tool. The tool's major cutting edge near-field and rake face is prone to micro-cracks resulting in crack diffusion. When the milling time is 3.5×10−6 s, the tool's major cutting edge combined displacement increases most rapidly, the major flank optimization effect is the most obvious, and the resultant displacement is reduced by about 37.06%. By optimizing the structural parameters of micro-grooves on the rake face, this study enhances the comprehensive performance of the tool and unveils the formation, distribution, and variation patterns of near-field cracks on the tool's cutting edge. The research results have certain valuable insights for the optimization design and manufacturing of high performance milling tools made from H13 die steel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To explore the surgical treatment of depressed fracture of skull in neonates. Methods and Results Eight neonates with depressed fracture of skull who underwent surgery in Children's Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University from January 2021 to December 2023 were included, and all of them underwent CT thin-slice scan + 3D reconstruction of skull before surgery. According to the location, extent and depth of the depression, the depressed edge was drilled and the depressed skull was reduced by bone pry (3 cases). The depressed skull collapsed again after the bone was pried up, the skin incision was extended to reveal the depressed area, and the shaped absorbable connector was fixed in the depressed area after prying up (2 cases). Blunt separation of the skull and dura mater at the lateral corner of the anterior fontanelle, and deep bone pry to pry up the depressed skull for reduction (one case). The skull and dura mater were bluntly separated from the coronal suture at the edge of the depression, and the depressed skull was pried up and reduced by deep bone pry (2 cases). On the first day after surgery, the re- examination of CT thin-slice scan + 3D reconstruction of skull showed that the depression reduction was satisfactory. Spontaneous fracture healing was happened in one case with linear fractures; hemorrhage resorption spontaneously was happened in one case with epidural hematoma. The average follow-up was 6.80 months, and the re-examination of CT thin-slice scan + 3D reconstruction of skull showed that the skull development was normal and there was no re-depression. Conclusions Immediate reduction of depressed fracture of skull can be achieved with surgery, and for fractures close to the anterior fontanelle or suture, the depression can be prying up through the lateral angle of the anterior fontanelle or the unclosed suture, which is more minimally invasive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mathematical morphology operations are widely used in image processing such as defect analysis in semiconductor manufacturing and medical image analysis. These data-intensive applications have high requirements during hardware implementation that are challenging for conventional hardware platforms such as central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs). Computation-in-memory (CIM) provides a possible solution for highly efficient morphology operations. In this study, we demonstrate the application of morphology operation with a novel memristor-based auto-detection architecture and demonstrate non-neuromorphic computation on a multi-array-based memristor system. Pixel-by-pixel logic computations with low parallelism are converted to parallel operations using memristors. Moreover, hardware-implemented computer-integrated manufacturing was used to experimentally demonstrate typical defect detection tasks in integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing and medical image analysis. In addition, we developed a new implementation scheme employing a four-layer network to realize small-object detection with high parallelism. The system benchmark based on the hardware measurement results showed significant improvement in the energy efficiency by approximately 358 times and 32 times more than when a CPU and GPU were employed, respectively, exhibiting the advantage of the proposed memristor-based morphology operation.