Observation of a Resonant Structure near the D_{s}^{+}D_{s}^{-} Threshold in the B^{+}→D_{s}^{+}D_{s}^{-}K^{+} Decay

An amplitude analysis of the B^{+}→D_{s}^{+}D_{s}^{-}K^{+} decay is carried out to study for the first time its intermediate resonant contributions, using proton-proton collision data collected with the LHCb detector at center-of-mass energies of 7, 8, and 13 TeV. A near-threshold peaking structure, referred to as X(3960), is observed in the D_{s}^{+}D_{s}^{-} invariant-mass spectrum with significance greater than 12 standard deviations. The mass, width, and the quantum numbers of the structure are measured to be 3956±5±10  MeV, 43±13±8  MeV, and J^{PC}=0^{++}, respectively, where the first uncertainties are statistical and the second systematic. The properties of the new structure are consistent with recent theoretical predictions for a state composed of cc[over ¯]ss[over ¯] quarks. Evidence for an additional structure is found around 4140 MeV in the D_{s}^{+}D_{s}^{-} invariant mass, which might be caused either by a new resonance with the 0^{++} assignment or by a J/ψϕ↔D_{s}^{+}D_{s}^{-} coupled-channel effect.

Soil moisture-atmosphere coupling accelerates global warming

Soil moisture-atmosphere coupling (SA) amplifies greenhouse gas-driven global warming via changes in surface heat balance. The Scenario Model Intercomparison Project projects an acceleration in SA-driven warming due to the 'warmer climate - drier soil' feedback, which continuously warms the globe and thereby exerts an acceleration effect on global warming. The projection shows that SA-driven warming exceeds 0.5 °C over extratropical landmasses by the end of the 21st Century. The likelihood of extreme high temperatures will additionally increase by about 10% over the entire globe (excluding Antarctica) and more than 30% over large parts of North America and Europe under the high-emission scenario. This demonstrates the high sensitivity of SA to climate change, in which SA can exceed the natural range of climate variability and play a non-linear warming component role on the globe.

Evidence for Modification of b Quark Hadronization in High-Multiplicity pp Collisions at sqrt[s]=13 TeV

The production rate of B_{s}^{0} mesons relative to B^{0} mesons is measured by the LHCb experiment in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy sqrt[s]=13  TeV over the forward rapidity interval 2 Collapse

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First Observation of a Doubly Charged Tetraquark and Its Neutral Partner

A combined amplitude analysis is performed for the decays B^{0}→D[over ¯]^{0}D_{s}^{+}π^{-} and B^{+}→D^{-}D_{s}^{+}π^{+}, which are related by isospin symmetry. The analysis is based on data collected by the LHCb detector in proton-proton collisions at center-of-mass energies of 7, 8, and 13 TeV. The full data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 9  fb^{-1}. Two new resonant states with masses of 2.908±0.011±0.020  GeV and widths of 0.136±0.023±0.013  GeV are observed, which decay to D_{s}^{+}π^{+} and D_{s}^{+}π^{-} respectively. The former state indicates the first observation of a doubly charged open-charm tetraquark state with minimal quark content [cs[over ¯]ud[over ¯]], and the latter state is a neutral tetraquark composed of [cs[over ¯]u[over ¯]d] quarks. Both states are found to have spin-parity of 0^{+}, and their resonant parameters are consistent with each other, which suggests that they belong to an isospin triplet.

Search for Rare Decays of D^{0} Mesons into Two Muons

A search for the very rare D^{0}→μ^{+}μ^{-} decay is performed using data collected by the LHCb experiment in proton-proton collisions at sqrt[s]=7, 8, and 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9  fb^{-1}. The search is optimized for D^{0} mesons from D^{*+}→D^{0}π^{+} decays but is also sensitive to D^{0} mesons from other sources. No evidence for an excess of events over the expected background is observed. An upper limit on the branching fraction of this decay is set at B(D^{0}→μ^{+}μ^{-})<3.1×10^{-9} at a 90% C.L. This represents the world's most stringent limit, constraining models of physics beyond the standard model.

Nuclear Modification Factor of Neutral Pions in the Forward and Backward Regions in p-Pb Collisions

The nuclear modification factor of neutral pions is measured in proton-lead collisions collected at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon of 8.16 TeV with the LHCb detector. The π^{0} production cross section is measured differentially in transverse momentum (p_{T}) for 1.5 Collapse

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Observation of a J/ψΛ Resonance Consistent with a Strange Pentaquark Candidate in B^{-}→J/ψΛp[over ¯] Decays

An amplitude analysis of B^{-}→J/ψΛp[over ¯] decays is performed using 4400 signal candidates selected on a data sample of pp collisions recorded at center-of-mass energies of 7, 8, and 13 TeV with the LHCb detector, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9  fb^{-1}. A narrow resonance in the J/ψΛ system, consistent with a pentaquark candidate with strangeness, is observed with high significance. The mass and the width of this new state are measured to be 4338.2±0.7±0.4  MeV and 7.0±1.2±1.3  MeV, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The spin is determined to be 1/2 and negative parity is preferred. Because of the small Q-value of the reaction, the most precise single measurement of the B^{-} mass to date, 5279.44±0.05±0.07  MeV, is obtained.

First Study of Reaction Ξ^{0}n→Ξ^{-}p Using Ξ^{0}-Nucleus Scattering at an Electron-Positron Collider

Using (1.0087±0.0044)×10^{10}  J/ψ events collected with the BESIII detector at the BEPCII storage ring, the process Ξ^{0}n→Ξ^{-}p is studied, where the Ξ^{0} baryon is produced in the process J/ψ→Ξ^{0}Ξ[over ¯]^{0} and the neutron is a component of the ^{9}Be, ^{12}C, and ^{197}Au nuclei in the beam pipe. A clear signal is observed with a statistical significance of 7.1σ. The cross section of the reaction Ξ^{0}+^{9}Be→Ξ^{-}+p+^{8}Be is determined to be σ(Ξ^{0}+^{9}Be→Ξ^{-}+p+^{8}Be)=(22.1±5.3_{stat}±4.5_{sys})  mb at the Ξ^{0} momentum of 0.818  GeV/c, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. No significant H-dibaryon signal is observed in the Ξ^{-}p final state. This is the first study of hyperon-nucleon interactions in electron-positron collisions and opens up a new direction for such research.

Mettl3-mediated m6A modification plays a role in lipid metabolism disorders and progressive liver damage in mice by regulating lipid metabolism-related gene expression

AIMS

N6-methyladenosine (m6A), the most abundant and conserved epigenetic modification of mRNA, participates in various physiological and pathological processes. However, the roles of m6A modification in liver lipid metabolism have yet to be understood entirely. We aimed to investigate the roles of the m6A "writer" protein methyltransferase-like 3 (Mettl3) in liver lipid metabolism and the underlying mechanisms.

MAIN METHODS

We assessed the expression of Mettl3 in liver tissues of diabetes (db/db) mice, obese (ob/ob) mice, high saturated fat-, cholesterol-, and fructose-induced non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) mice, and alcohol abuse and alcoholism (NIAAA) mice by quantitative reverse-transcriptase PCR (qRT-PCR). Hepatocyte-specific Mettl3 knockout mice were used to evaluate the effects of Mettl3 deficiency in mouse liver. The molecular mechanisms underlying the roles of Mettl3 deletion in liver lipid metabolism were explored by multi-omics joint analysis of public data from the Gene Expression Omnibus database and further validated by qRT-PCR and Western blot.

KEY FINDINGS

Significantly decreased Mettl3 expression was associated with NAFLD progression. Hepatocyte-specific knockout of Mettl3 resulted in significant lipid accumulation in the liver, increased serum total cholesterol levels, and progressive liver damage in mice. Mechanistically, loss of Mettl3 significantly downregulated the expression levels of multiple m6A-modified mRNAs related to lipid metabolism, including Adh7, Cpt1a, and Cyp7a1, further promoting lipid metabolism disorders and liver injury in mice.

SIGNIFICANCE

In summary, our findings demonstrate that the expression alteration of genes related to lipid metabolism by Mettl3-mediated m6A modification contributes to the development of NAFLD.

Measurements of Normalized Differential Cross Sections of Inclusive π^{0} and K_{S}^{0} Production in e^{+}e^{-} Annihilation at Energies from 2.2324 to 3.6710 GeV

Based on electron positron collision data collected with the BESIII detector operating at the BEPCII storage rings, the differential cross sections of inclusive π^{0} and K_{S}^{0} production as a function of hadron momentum, normalized by the total cross section of the e^{+}e^{-}→hadrons process, are measured at six center-of-mass energies from 2.2324 to 3.6710 GeV. Our results, which cover a relative hadron energy range from 0.1 to 0.9, significantly deviate from several theoretical calculations based on existing fragmentation functions.

Ecotoxicological risk assessment of 14 pesticides and corresponding metabolites to groundwater and soil organisms using China-PEARL model and RQ approach

Global use of pesticides brings uncertain risks to human and nontarget species via environmental matrix. Currently, various models for exposure risk assessment are developed and widely used to forecast the impact of pesticides on environmental organisms. In this study, five commonly used insecticides, seven herbicides and three fungicides were chosen to analyze the subsequent risks in groundwater in simulated scenarios using China-PEARL (Pesticide Emission Assessment at Regional and Local Scales) model. In addition, their exposure risks to soil organisms were characterized based on risk quotient (RQ) approach. The results indicated that 23.3% of the total 528 predicted environmental concentrations (PECs) of pesticides and respective metabolites in groundwater from six Chinese simulated locations with ten crops were above 10 μg L^-1. Furthermore, acceptable human risks of pesticides in groundwater were observed for all simulation scenarios (RQ < 1). Based on the derived PECs in soil short-term and long-term exposure simulation scenarios, all compounds were evaluated to be with acceptable risks to soil organisms, except that imidacloprid was estimated to be with unacceptable chronic risk (RQ = 27.5) to earthworms. Overall, the present findings provide an opportunity for a more-comprehensive understanding of exposure toxicity risks of pesticides leaching into groundwater and soil.

Mining belt foreign body detection method based on YOLOv4_GECA model

In the process of mining belt transportation, various foreign objects may appear, which will have a great impact on the crusher and belt, thus affecting production progress and causing serious safety accidents. Therefore, it is important to detect foreign objects in the early stages of intrusion in mining belt conveyor systems. To solve this problem, the YOLOv4_GECA method is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the GECA attention module is added to establish the YOLOv4_GECA foreign object detection model in the mineral belt to enhance the foreign object feature extraction capability. Secondly, based on this model, the learning rate decay of restart cosine annealing is used to improve the foreign object image detection performance of the model. Finally, we collected belt transport image information from the Pai Shan Lou gold mine site in Shenyang and established a belt foreign body detection dataset. The experimental results show that the average detection accuracy of the YOLOv4_GECA method proposed in this paper is 90.1%, the recall rate is 90.7%, and the average detection time is 30 ms, which meets the requirements for detection accuracy and real-time performance at the mine belt transportation site.

Epitranscriptomic turbo for autophagy boost: m6A reader YTHDF3

Mcroautophagy/autophagy plays an important role in maintaining homeostasis during nutrient starvation. However, whether epitranscriptomic events are involved in this process remains unclear. Our recent findings suggest that m6A reader YTHDF3 has an essential role in autophagy induction. Elevated m6A modifications installed by METTL3 enable YTHDF3 to promote autophagosome formation and lysosomal function upon nutrient deficiency. This is due to YTHDF3 binding to the m6A modifications at the coding DNA sequence (CDS) and 3' untranslated region (UTR) around the stop codon of Foxo3 mRNA, recruiting EIF3A and EIF4B to facilitate FOXO3 translation, thus boosting autophagy. In this punctum, we discuss our finding for how YTHDF3 responds to nutrient starvation to promote autophagy flux, providing insights into RNA post-transcriptional modifications linking nutrient cues to autophagic upcycling.

Treatment of severe Hidradenitis suppurativa with a combination of 5-aminolevulinic acid photodynamic therapy, surgery, and secukinumab

Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by nodules, abscesses, fistulas, sinus tracts, and scars, typically in intertriginous areas [1]. Therapeutic options include medications, surgical interventions, and physiotherapy; however, clinical management is challenging. We report a case of HS that was refractory to multiple treatments and achieved complete remission with a combination therapy of surgery, 5-aminolevulinic acid photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT), and secukinumab.

Precision Measurement of the Decay Σ^{+}→pγ in the Process J/ψ→Σ^{+}Σ[over ¯]^{-}

Using (10 087±44)×10^{6} J/ψ events collected with the BESIII detector, the radiative hyperon decay Σ^{+}→pγ is studied at an electron-positron collider experiment for the first time. The absolute branching fraction is measured to be (0.996±0.021_{stat}±0.018_{syst})×10^{-3}, which is lower than its world average value by 4.2 standard deviations. Its decay asymmetry parameter is determined to be -0.652±0.056_{stat}±0.020_{syst}. The branching fraction and decay asymmetry parameter are the most precise to date, and the accuracies are improved by 78% and 34%, respectively.

Hairy gene homolog increases nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell stemness by upregulating Bmi-1

B-cell-specific Moloney murine leukemia virus integration site 1 (Bmi-1) is overexpressed in various cancer types. We found that Bmi-1 mRNA levels were elevated in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) cell lines. In immunohistochemical analyses, high Bmi-1 levels were observed in not only 5 of 38 non-cancerous nasopharyngeal squamous epithelial biopsies, but also in 66 of 98 NPC specimens (67.3%). High Bmi-1 levels were detected more frequently in T3-T4, N2-N3 and stage III-IV NPC biopsies than in T1-T2, N0-N1 and stage I-II NPC samples, indicating that Bmi-1 is upregulated in advanced NPC. In 5-8F and SUNE1 NPC cells, stable depletion of Bmi-1 using lentiviral RNA interference greatly suppressed cell proliferation, induced G1-phase cell cycle arrest, reduced cell stemness and suppressed cell migration and invasion. Likewise, knocking down Bmi-1 inhibited NPC cell growth in nude mice. Both chromatin immunoprecipitation and Western blotting assays demonstrated that Hairy gene homolog (HRY) upregulated Bmi-1 by binding to its promoter, thereby increasing the stemness of NPC cells. Immunohistochemistry and quantitative real-time PCR analyses revealed that HRY expression correlated positively with Bmi-1 expression in a cohort of NPC biopsies. These findings suggested that HRY promotes NPC cell stemness by upregulating Bmi-1, and that silencing Bmi-1 can suppress NPC progression.

Sepsis-related immunosuppression: a bibliometric analysis

Background

Sepsis is one of the main causes of death in critically ill patients. Immunosuppression was involved deeply in the process of sepsis. The status of research on sepsis-related immunosuppression remains unclear. In this study, a bibliometric analysis was conducted to provide a preliminarily analysis of the current research status in sepsis-related immunosuppression.

Methods

The Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E) database in the Web of Science Core Collection was used as the data source for the literature search, and the time was set from the inception of the database to the last retrieval time for this study (i.e., May 21, 2022). Using the topic search, we searched for "sepsis" and then for "immunosuppression" in the results to obtain the final results. On the search page of the SCI-E database, we selected the document type, topic direction, MeSH topic heading, MeSH qualifier, keywords, author, journal, country, research institution, language, etc., to obtain the distribution results, and manually removed any duplicate records. We analyzed the use of keywords in the literature and the centrality of the authors, countries, and research institutions.

Results

A total of 4,132 articles were retrieved from the database over the search period of 1900 to May 21, 2022. The number of articles published increased annually. A trend of rapid growth was also observed in the number of citations. The most common topic words were humans, male, and female. The most used keywords were sepsis, immunosuppression, and male. The most published researcher was Monneret from Lyon, France. The authors of the article mainly specialized in immunology and surgery. Moldawer and Chaudry from the United States (US) had engaged in the most collaborations with other researchers. The journals that publish literature in this field are mainly journals related to critical care medicine, and the core journals included Shock, Critical Care, and Critical Care Medicine.

Conclusions

More and more studies are being published on sepsis-related immunosuppression and largely being conducted in developed countries. Chinese researchers need to carry out more collaborative research.

Rapid detection of molybdenum ore grade based on visible-infrared spectroscopy and MTSVD-TGJO-ELM

The rapid determination of ore grade can improve the efficiency of beneficiation. The existing molybdenum ore grade determination methods lag behind the beneficiation work. Therefore, this paper proposes a method based on a combination of Visible-infrared spectroscopy and machine learning to rapidly determine molybdenum ore grade. Firstly, 128 molybdenum ores were collected as spectral test samples to obtain spectral data. Then 13 latent variables were extracted from the 973 spectral features using partial least square. The Durbin-Watson test and the runs test were used to detect the partial residual plots and augmented partial residual plots of LV₁ and LV₂ to determine the non-linear relationship between spectral signal and molybdenum content. Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) was used instead of linear modeling methods to model the grade of molybdenum ores because of the non-linear behavior of the spectral data. In this paper, the Golden Jackal Optimization of adaptive T-distribution was used to optimize the parameters of the ELM to solve the problem of unreasonable parameters. Aiming at solving ill-posed problems by ELM, this paper decomposes the ELM output matrix by using the improved truncated singular value decomposition. Finally, this paper proposes an extreme learning machine method based on a modified truncated singular value decomposition and a Golden Jackal Optimization of adaptive T-distribution (MTSVD-TGJO-ELM). Compared with other classical machine learning algorithms, MTSVD-TGJO-ELM has the highest accuracy. This provides a new method for rapid detection of ore grade in the mining process and facilitates accurate beneficiation of molybdenum ores to improve ore recovery rate.

Rnf144b alleviates the inflammatory responses and cardiac dysfunction in sepsis

AIMS

Sepsis is an inflammatory disease with high mortality and morbidity. Inflammation plays an essential role in sepsis, and suppressing inflammation has been shown to ameliorate sepsis. Rnf144b is an ubiquitin E3 ligation with anti-inflammation activities. Its precise roles in sepsis remain unknown. Here, we explored the function of Rnf144b in sepsis.

METHODS AND RESULTS

We generated conditional knockout mice with Rnf144b deficiency in the myeloid cells. We monitored the Rnf144b expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from healthy donor and patients with sepsis, and in lipopolysaccharides (LPS)-treated bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs). The cytokine expression between wild-type BMDMs and Rnf144b-deficient BMDMs after LPS and CpG treatments was compared. The survival rate and cardiac function were monitored. The activation of TANK binding kinase 1 and nuclear factor kappa-B was examined by Western blot and real-time PCR. Up-regulated expression of Rnf144b was observed in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from patients with sepsis. LPS induced the expression of Rnf144b in BMDMs. Rnf144b-deficient BMDMs produced more inflammatory cytokines after LPS or CpG stimulation. Septic mice with Rnf144b deficiency in myeloid cells had higher mortality and exacerbated cardiac dysfunction. Rnf144b interacted with TANK binding kinase 1 and Rnf144b deficiency resulted in impaired activation of TBK1 but enhanced activation of nuclear factor kappa-B.

CONCLUSIONS

Rnf144b prevents inflammatory responses and cardiac dysfunction in sepsis.

[A prospective randomized controlled study of antibiotic bone cement in the treatment of diabetic foot ulcer]

Objective: To investigate the clinical effects and related mechanism of antibiotic bone cement in treating diabetic foot ulcer (DFU). Methods: A prospective randomized controlled study was conducted. From August 2020 to August 2022, 24 patients with DFU who met the inclusion criteria were admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Air Force Medical University. According to the block randomization, the patients were divided into 2 groups, with 12 patients in each group. In antibiotic bone cement group, there were 7 male and 5 female patients, aged (64±8) years, with the ulcer area of (41±21) cm2. In silver sulfadiazine group, there were 8 male and 4 female patients, aged (62±8) years, with the ulcer area of (38±19) cm2. Under the condition of ensuring the patency of at least one main inferior genicular artery in each patient, the continuous vacuum sealing drainage was performed for 3-5 days after thorough debridement. Thereafter, the wounds in antibiotic bone cement group were treated with gentamicin-laden bone cement, and the wounds in silver sulfadiazine group were treated with silver sulfadiazine cream for dressing change. After 3 weeks of dressing change, the wound was covered with split-thickness skin graft from the lateral thigh on the affected side. Before debridement and after 3 weeks of dressing change, the blood flow intensities of wound tissue and normal skin tissue in foot were measured using laser Doppler flowmeter, and then, the percentage of relative blood flow intensity of wound and the change rate of blood flow intensity were calculated. After 3 weeks of dressing change, the wound margin tissue was taken, the number of CD31-positive neovascular and the vascular morphology were observed and detected by immunohistochemical staining, the morphology of blood vessels surrounded by CD31 and α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) double-positive cells was observed by immunofluorescence staining, the cell proliferation activity was evaluated by immunofluorescence staining (denoted as the ratio of Ki67 positive cells), and the protein expression of vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2) was detected by Western blotting. The skin graft survival was observed 3-5 days after skin grafting, and the wound healing time was recorded. Data were statistically analyzed with independent sample t test and Fisher's exact probability test. Results: The percentages of relative blood flow intensity of wounds of patients before debridement were similar between the two groups (P>0.05). After 3 weeks of dressing change, the percentage of relative blood flow intensity of wounds and the change rate of blood flow intensity of patients in antibiotic bone cement group were (44.7±2.0)% and (129±12)%, respectively, which were significantly higher than (28.3±1.2)% and (41±8)% in silver sulfadiazine group (with t values of 24.15 and 20.97, respectively, P<0.05). After 3 weeks of dressing change, compared with those in silver sulfadiazine group, the number of CD31-positive neovascular in the wound margin tissue of patients in antibiotic bone cement group was significantly increased (t=33.81, P<0.05) with larger diameter and more regular arrangement, the vascular wall continuity surrounded by CD31 and α-SMA double-positive cells was better, and the ratio of Ki67 positive cells and protein expression of VEGFR2 were significantly increased (with t values of 40.97 and 47.38, respectively, P<0.05). On post skin grafting day 3-5, all the patients in antibiotic bone cement group and 8 patients in silver sulfadiazine group had good skin graft survival, while 4 patients in silver sulfadiazine group showed spotted/patchy skin graft necrosis, which were cured after corresponding treatment. The wound healing time of patients in antibiotic bone cement group was (47.1±2.9) d, which was significantly shorter than (58.8±2.3) d in silver sulfadiazine group (t=10.86, P<0.05). Conclusions: Compared with silver sulfadiazine, clinical application of antibiotic bone cement for treating DFU has the characteristics of accelerating wound healing and better reconstruction of local blood flow, which may be closely related to the fact that antibiotic bone cement promoted the local angiogenesis effectively in the wound through enhancing the expression of VEGFR2.

Measurements of the Electric and Magnetic Form Factors of the Neutron for Timelike Momentum Transfer

We present the first measurements of the electric and magnetic form factors of the neutron in the timelike (positive q^{2}) region as function of four-momentum transfer. We explored the differential cross sections of the reaction e^{+}e^{-}→n[over ¯]n with data collected with the BESIII detector at the BEPCII accelerator, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 354.6  pb^{-1} in total at twelve center-of-mass energies between sqrt[s]=2.0-2.95  GeV. A relative uncertainty of 18% and 12% for the electric and magnetic form factors, respectively, is achieved at sqrt[s]=2.3935  GeV. Our results are comparable in accuracy to those from electron scattering in the comparable spacelike region of four-momentum transfer. The electromagnetic form factor ratio R_{em}≡|G_{E}|/|G_{M}| is within the uncertainties close to unity. We compare our result on |G_{E}| and |G_{M}| to recent model predictions, and the measurements in the spacelike region to test the analyticity of electromagnetic form factors.

MicroRNA-155 suppressed cholesterol-induced matrix degradation, pyroptosis and apoptosis by targeting RORα in nucleus pulposus cells

Intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD) is associated with low back pain, yet its inherent mechanism remains obscure. Hypercholesteremia was regarded as a risk factor for IDD, and our previous study showed that cholesterol accumulation could elicit matrix degradation in the nucleus pulposus (NP). MicroRNA-155 (miR-155) was substantiated as protective in IDD, but its role in cholesterol-induced IDD was unclear. The present study investigated whether miR-155 could mediate cholesterol-related IDD and its internal mechanisms. In vivo experiments revealed high-fat diet-induced hypercholesteremia in wild-type (WT) mice along with the occurrence of IDD, whereas Rm155LG transgenic mice showed milder NP degeneration, as evidenced by Safranin O-fast green (SF) staining and immunohistochemistry (IHC). Meanwhile, IHC showed that NLRP3 and Bax expression was also suppressed in Rm155LG mice. In vitro studies using Western blotting (WB) and immunofluorescence (IF) confirmed that the miR-155 mimic could alleviate cholesterol-induced matrix degradation, apoptosis and pyroptosis in NP. Moreover, RORα was upregulated in severely degenerated NP compared to mild IDD. It was also noted that RORα was suppressed in Rm155LG mice. In this study, we demonstrated that miR-155 could target RORα and that inhibition of RORα could prevent cholesterol-induced matrix degradation, apoptosis, and pyroptosis in NP, indicating the protective effect of miR-155 in cholesterol-induced IDD by targeting RORα.

Observation of a New X(3872) Production Process e^{+}e^{-}→ωX(3872)

Using 4.7  fb^{-1} of e^{+}e^{-} collision data at center-of-mass energies from 4.661 to 4.951 GeV collected by the BESIII detector at the BEPCII collider, we observe the X(3872) production process e^{+}e^{-}→ωX(3872) for the first time. The significance is 7.8σ, including both the statistical and systematic uncertainties. The e^{+}e^{-}→ωX(3872) Born cross section and the corresponding upper limit at 90% confidence level at each energy point are reported. The line shape of the cross section indicates that the ωX(3872) signals may be from the decays of some nontrivial structures.