[The measurement and clinical significance of the rotation angles of head-neck fragments after cephalomedullary nail fixation in intertrochanteric fractures]

OBJECTIVE

To measure the rotation angle of the head-neck fragment of intertrochanteric fracture after cephalomedullary nail fixation by three-dimensional CT imaging, and to explore its clinical significance.

METHODS

The clinical data of 68 patients with unstable intertrochanteric fracture of AO/Orthopaedic Trauma Association (AO-OTA) type 31-A2 treated with cephalomedullary nail fixation and with complete intraoperative fluoroscopy and postoperative three-dimensional CT imaging data between July 2016 and October 2018 were retrospectively analyzed. Among them, there were 21 males and 47 females, aged 68-93 years, with an average age of 81.8 years. There were 31 cases of AO/OTA type 31-A2.2 and 37 cases of 31-A2.3. Fracture reduction quality was evaluated according to Baumgaertner et al. and Chang et al. criteria. The anteromedial cortical contact or not of each patient was observed by three-dimensional CT imaging on T3DView software after operation. The rotation of head-neck fragments were divided into three types: non-rotation, flexion rotation, and hyperextension rotation. The rotation angles of each type were measured and the relationship between the rotation type of the head-neck fragments and the contact of the anteromedial cortex was analyzed.

RESULTS

The reduction and fixation of the small trochanter were not performed in 68 patients. According to Baumgaertner et al. criteria, the quality of fracture reduction was excellent in 15 cases (22.1%), acceptable in 50 cases (73.5%), and poor in 3 cases (4.4%). According to Chang et al. criteria, 31 cases were excellent (45.6%), 33 cases were acceptable (48.5%), and 4 cases were poor (5.9%). Thirty-nine cases (57.4%) received anteromedial cortical support and 29 cases (42.6%) did not receive cortical support. Three-dimensional CT imaging showed non-rotation in 12 cases (17.6%), flexion rotation in 39 cases (57.4%), and hyperextension rotation in 17 cases (25.0%). There were 7 cases (58.3%), 30 cases (76.9%), and 2 cases (11.8%) of cortical support in non-rotation group, flexion rotation group, and hyperextension rotation group, respectively. The rotation angles were (1.05±0.61), (13.96±6.17), (8.21±3.88)°, respectively. There were significant differences between groups ( P<0.05).

CONCLUSION

In the unstable intertrochanteric fracture after cephalomedullary nail fixation, the rotation of head-neck fragment exists in most patients, and the types of flexion rotation and non-rotation can easily obtain cortical support reduction.

The complete chloroplast genome of a medical herb, Halenia elliptica D.Don (Gentianaceae), from Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China

Halenia elliptica D.Don (Gentianaceae) is one of the genuine medicinal species in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China. Here we report the first chloroplast (cp) genome of H. elliptica using Illumina HiSeq X Ten platform. The length of its complete cp genome is 153,341 bp, containing four sub-regions; a large single-copy region (LSC) of 82,811 bp and a small single-copy region (SSC) of 18,278 bp, which are separated by a pair of inverted repeat regions (IRs) of 26,126bp each. The complete cp genome of H. elliptica contains 129 genes, including 84 protein-coding genes, 37 tRNA genes, and 8 rRNA genes. The overall GC content of the cp genome is 38.1%. The phylogenetic analysis, based on 15 cp genomes, suggested that H. elliptica is closely related to Halenia corniculata (L.) Cornaz and Swertia species.

Microcatheter shaping using three-dimensional printed models for intracranial aneurysm coiling

Background and purpose

Microcatheterization is an important, but also difficult, technique used for the embolization of intracranial aneurysms. The purpose of this study was to investigate the application of three-dimensional (3D) printing technology in microcatheter shaping.

Methods

Nine cases of internal carotid artery posterior communicating artery aneurysm diagnosed by CT angiography were selected, and 3D printing technology was used to build a 3D model including the aneurysm and the parent artery. The hollow and translucent model had certain flexibility; it was immersed in water and the microcatheter was introduced into the water to the target position in the aneurysm, followed by heating the water temperature to 50°C. After soaking for 5 min, the microcatheter was taken out and the shaping was completed. After sterilization, the shaped microcatheter was used for arterial aneurysm embolization and evaluation was conducted.

Results

Nine cases of microcatheter shaping were satisfactory and shaping the needle was not necessary; no rebound was observed. The microcatheter was placed in an ideal position, and the stent-assisted method was used in three cases of wide-neck aneurysm. There were no complications related to surgery.

Conclusion

A new microcatheter shaping method using 3D printing technology makes intracranial artery aneurysm embolization more stable and efficient.

GSK-3β and ERK1/2 incongruously act in tau hyperphosphorylation in SPS-induced PTSD rats

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) manifests in neurocognitive deficits in association with increased tau deposition, which mainly consist of phosphorylated tau in Alzheimer disease (AD) brain. However, the exact mechanism of PTSD inducing tau hyperphosphorylation remains unclear and therefore no effective treatment options are currently available. We here show that employing single prolonged stress (SPS), as a consensus PTSD model, induced a typical anxiety and abnormal hyperphosphorylation of tau at Ser202/Thr205 (AT8) and Ser404 but not at Ser199 and Ser396 in the hippocampus compared to the control rats. Furthermore, there was a decrease in the level of inactivated phosphorylated GSK-3β at Ser9, an increase in the level of activated phosphorylated GSK-3β at Thr216 and an obvious decrease in the level of activated phosphorylated ERK1/2, but no alterations in CaMKII and PP2A in hippocampus of SPS rats. On the other hand, the levels of both phosphorylated AKT and total SGK1, stress- and GSK-3β/ERK1/2-related proteins, were down-regulated. Interestingly, Overexpression of SGK1 increased the level of phosphorylated ERK1/2 and led to tau hyperphosphorylation at Ser199 and Ser396. These findings suggest that SPS exposure results in differential tau phosphorylation at different sites probably due to incongruous action between AKT-related GSK-3β activation and SGK1-related ERK1/2 inactivation, suggesting a link between SPS-induced PTSD and AD-associated tau pathogenic mechanisms.

Predict Epitranscriptome Targets and Regulatory Functions of N 6-Methyladenosine (m6A) Writers and Erasers

Currently, although many successful bioinformatics efforts have been reported in the epitranscriptomics field for N 6-methyladenosine (m6A) site identification, none is focused on the substrate specificity of different m6A-related enzymes, ie, the methyltransferases (writers) and demethylases (erasers). In this work, to untangle the target specificity and the regulatory functions of different RNA m6A writers (METTL3-METT14 and METTL16) and erasers (ALKBH5 and FTO), we extracted 49 genomic features along with the conventional sequence features and used the machine learning approach of random forest to predict their epitranscriptome substrates. Our method achieved reasonable performance on both the writer target prediction (as high as 0.918) and the eraser target prediction (as high as 0.888) in a 5-fold cross-validation, and results of the gene ontology analysis of their preferential targets further revealed the functional relevance of different RNA methylation writers and erasers.

Multiple-pathway arsenic oxidation and removal from wastewater by a novel manganese-oxidizing aerobic granular sludge

Aerobic granular sludge (AGS) is a powerful biotechnology to remove various heavy metal(loid)s from wastewater, but not including arsenic (As). In this study, a novel manganese-oxidizing aerobic granular sludge (Mn-AGS) was developed to remove As from organic wastewater. Eight sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) were operated in duplicate to investigate the feasibility of As removal by Mn-AGS. The immobilized As in the granular sludge was characterized by sequencing extraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), and Raman spectroscopy. Oxidation pathways for As and their contributions in Mn-AGS were evaluated by seven batch experiments under different conditions. The results indicated that As removal efficiency was much higher by Mn-AGS than by AGS. In Mn-AGS, As(III) was efficiently oxidized into As(V) (74.6%-82.6%) and then mostly bound on amorphous ferrihydrite and biogenic Mn oxides (bio-MnO_x) (56.2%-65.0%), while metal arsenates, such as ferric arsenate, were not detected. Importantly, As removal was greatly improved by a small addition of Fe(II) in Mn-AGS. This might be primarily caused by Fenton reactions, because this improvement was removed when H₂O₂, self-generated in Mn-AGS, was scavenged by exogenous catalase (CAT). This study provided a novel extension of the traditional AGS technology to treat As in organic wastewater with an acceptable degree of efficiency.

Moringa Oleifera Alleviates Homocysteine-Induced Alzheimer's Disease-Like Pathology and Cognitive Impairments

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is multifactorial with unclear etiopathology. Due to the complexity of AD, many attempted single therapy treatments, like Aβ immunization, have generally failed. Therefore, there is a need for drugs with multiple benefits. Naturally occurring phytochemicals with neuroprotective, anti-amyloidogenic, antioxidative, and anti-inflammatory properties could be a possible way out. In this study, the effect of Moringa oleifera (MO), a naturally occurring plant with high antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, and neuroprotective effects, was evaluated on hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcy) induced AD-like pathology in rats. Homocysteine (Hcy) injection for 14 days was used to induce AD-like pathology. Simultaneous MO extract gavage followed the injection as a preventive treatment or, after injection completion, MO gavage was performed for another 14 days as a curative treatment. MO was found to not only prevent but also rescue the oxidative stress and cognitive impairments induced by Hcy treatment. Moreover, MO recovered the decreased synaptic proteins PSD93, PSD95, Synapsin 1 and Synaptophysin, and improved neurodegeneration. Interestingly, MO decreased the Hyc-induced tau hyperphosphorylation at different sites including S-199, T-231, S-396, and S-404, and at the same time decreased Aβ production through downregulation of BACE1. These effects in HHcy rats were accompanied by a decrease in calpain activity under MO treatment, supporting that calpain activation might be involved in AD pathogenesis in HHcy rats. Taken together, our data, for the first time, provided evidence that MO alleviates tau hyperphosphorylation and Aβ pathology in a HHcy AD rat model. This and previous other studies support MO as a good candidate for, and could provide new insights into, the treatment of AD and other tauopathies.

Application of a Tabu search-based Bayesian network in identifying factors related to hypertension

The study aimed to study the related factors of hypertension using multivariate logistic regression analysis and tabu search-based Bayesian Networks (BNs). A cluster random sampling method was adopted to obtain samples of the general population aged 15 years or above. Multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that gender, age, cultural level, body mass index (BMI), central obesity, drinking, diabetes mellitus, Myocardial infarction, Coronary heart disease, Stroke are associated with hypertension. While BNs found connections between those related factors and hypertension were established by complex network structure, age, smoking, occupation, cultural level, BMI, central obesity, drinking, diabetes mellitus, myocardial infarction, coronary heart disease, nephropathy, stroke were direct connection with hypertension, gender was indirectly linked to hypertension through drinking. The results showed that BNs can not only find out the correlative factors of hypertension but also analyze how these factors affect hypertension and their interrelationships, which is consistent with practical theory better than logistic regression and has a better application prospects.

Comparison of plantar loads among runners with different strike patterns

This study aimed to explore the plantar loading variables between habitual rearfoot strike (RFS) and non-rearfoot strike (NRFS) during running. 78 healthy males participated in this study (41 RFS, 37 NRFS). In-shoe pressure sensors were used to measure plantar loading while the participants were running on a 15 m indoor runway with their preferred foot strike pattern (FSP) at 12.0 ± 5% km/h. Results indicate that force and pressure parameters were much higher in the rearfoot and midfoot regions during RFS running and relatively greater in forefoot region during NRFS running. However, compared with NRFS running, the contact area, maximum force and force-time-integrals during RFS running on total foot were 21.44% (P < 0.001, ES = 2.29), 13.99% (P = 0.006, ES = 0.64) and 21.27% (P < 0.001, ES = 0.85) higher, respectively. Total foot peak pressure and pressure-time-integral between two FSPs were similar. Higher loads in the rearfoot region may transmit to the knee joint and result in patellofemoral joint injuries. NRFS runners' higher loads in forefoot seem to be ralated to metatarsal stress fractures and compensatory damage to the Achilles tendon. Therefore, runners should choose proper FSPs according to their unique physical conditions.

Characterization of Thiamine Diphosphate-Dependent 4-Hydroxybenzoylformate Decarboxylase Enzymes from Rhodococcus jostii RHA1 and Pseudomonas fluorescens Pf-5 Involved in Degradation of Aryl C2 Lignin Degradation Fragments

A thiamine diphosphate-dependent enzyme annotated as a benzoylformate decarboxylase is encoded by gene cluster ro02984-ro02986 in Rhodococcus jostii RHA1 previously shown to generate vanillin and 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde from lignin oxidation, and a closely related gene cluster is also found in the genome of Pseudomonas fluorescens Pf-5. Two hypotheses for possible pathways involving a thiamine diphosphate-dependent cleavage, either C-C cleavage of a ketol or diketone aryl C₃ substrate or decarboxylation of an aryl C₂ substrate, were investigated by expression and purification of the recombinant enzymes and expression of dehydrogenase and oxidase enzymes also found in the gene clusters. The ThDP-dependent enzymes showed no activity for cleavage of aryl C₃ ketol or diketone substrates but showed activity for decarboxylation of benzoylformate and 4-hydroxybenzoylformate. A flavin-dependent oxidase encoded by gene ro02984 was found to oxidize either mandelic acid or phenylglyoxal. The crystal structure of the P. fluorescens decarboxylase enzyme was determined at 1.69 Å resolution, showing similarity to structures of known benzoylformate decarboxylase enzymes. The P. fluorescens decarboxylase enzyme showed enhanced carboligase activity between vanillin and acetaldehyde, rationalized by the presence of alanine versus serine at residue 73 in the enzyme active site, which was investigated further by site-directed mutagenesis of this residue. A hypothesis for a pathway for degradation of aryl C₂ fragments arising from oxidative cleavage of phenylcoumaran and diarylpropane structures in lignin is proposed.

m6Acomet: large-scale functional prediction of individual m6A RNA methylation sites from an RNA co-methylation network

Background

Over one hundred different types of post-transcriptional RNA modifications have been identified in human. Researchers discovered that RNA modifications can regulate various biological processes, and RNA methylation, especially N6-methyladenosine, has become one of the most researched topics in epigenetics.

Results

To date, the study of epitranscriptome layer gene regulation is mostly focused on the function of mediator proteins of RNA methylation, i.e., the readers, writers and erasers. There is limited investigation of the functional relevance of individual m⁶A RNA methylation site. To address this, we annotated human m⁶A sites in large-scale based on the guilt-by-association principle from an RNA co-methylation network. It is constructed based on public human MeRIP-Seq datasets profiling the m⁶A epitranscriptome under 32 independent experimental conditions. By systematically examining the network characteristics obtained from the RNA methylation profiles, a total of 339,158 putative gene ontology functions associated with 1446 human m⁶A sites were identified. These are biological functions that may be regulated at epitranscriptome layer via reversible m⁶A RNA methylation. The results were further validated on a soft benchmark by comparing to a random predictor.

Conclusions

An online web server m6Acomet was constructed to support direct query for the predicted biological functions of m⁶A sites as well as the sites exhibiting co-methylated patterns at the epitranscriptome layer. The m6Acomet web server is freely available at: www.xjtlu.edu.cn/biologicalsciences/m6acomet.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12859-019-2840-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

WHISTLE: a high-accuracy map of the human N6-methyladenosine (m6A) epitranscriptome predicted using a machine learning approach

N 6-methyladenosine (m6A) is the most prevalent post-transcriptional modification in eukaryotes, and plays a pivotal role in various biological processes, such as splicing, RNA degradation and RNA-protein interaction. We report here a prediction framework WHISTLE for transcriptome-wide m6A RNA-methylation site prediction. When tested on six independent datasets, our approach, which integrated 35 additional genomic features besides the conventional sequence features, achieved a major improvement in the accuracy of m6A site prediction (average AUC: 0.948 and 0.880 under the full transcript or mature messenger RNA models, respectively) compared to the state-of-the-art computational approaches MethyRNA (AUC: 0.790 and 0.732) and SRAMP (AUC: 0.761 and 0.706). It also out-performed the existing epitranscriptome databases MeT-DB (AUC: 0.798 and 0.744) and RMBase (AUC: 0.786 and 0.736), which were built upon hundreds of epitranscriptome high-throughput sequencing samples. To probe the putative biological processes impacted by changes in an individual m6A site, a network-based approach was implemented according to the 'guilt-by-association' principle by integrating RNA methylation profiles, gene expression profiles and protein-protein interaction data. Finally, the WHISTLE web server was built to facilitate the query of our high-accuracy map of the human m6A epitranscriptome, and the server is freely available at: www.xjtlu.edu.cn/biologicalsciences/whistle and http://whistle-epitranscriptome.com.

Imbalance in obesity and mental health among "little emperors" in China

INTRODUCTION

Previous research has indicated that only children (i.e., those living with no siblings) have higher odds of obesity during childhood and young adulthood, compared with those living with siblings. However, little is known about whether the developing difference in overweight/obesity is accompanied by a difference in mental health (i.e., internalizing symptoms of depression and anxiety).

METHODS

The subjects for this prospective study were a randomly generated cohort of 1348 high-school students in Guangzhou, China. Participants completed assessments of anthropometric indices, lipid profiles, family-based factors, lifestyle, and internalization of symptoms (including those of depression and anxiety).

RESULTS

Compared to their peers with siblings, only children (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 1.68, 95% confidence interval [CI] [1.06, 2.65]) had significantly higher risk for obesity. However, only children with overweight/obesity had lower OR for depression at follow-up (aOR = 0.19, 95% CI [0.34, 0.86]), compared to individuals who were overweight/obese with siblings. This relationship was not significant for non-overweight individuals. No significant relationship between the number of siblings and anxiety at follow-up was observed, regardless of body mass index (BMI).

CONCLUSIONS

Although being an only child was significantly associated with overweight and obesity among adolescents in China, participants with history of overweight/obesity are less likely to experience symptoms of depression associated with being an only child.

Accurate Facial Image Parsing at Real-Time Speed

In this paper, we propose a design scheme for deep learning networks in face parsing task with promising accuracy and real-time inference speed. By analyzing the differences between general image parsing task and face parsing task, we first revisit the structure of traditional FCN and make improvements to adapt to the unique properties of face parsing task. Especially, the concept of Normalized Receptive Field is proposed to give more insights on designing the network. Then a novel loss function called Statistical Contextual Loss is introduced, which integrates richer contextual information and regularizes features during training. For further model acceleration, we propose a semi-supervised distillation scheme that effectively transfers the learned knowledge to a lighter network. Extensive experiments on LFW and Helen dataset demonstrate the significant superiority of the new design scheme on both efficacy and efficiency.

DRUM: Inference of Disease-Associated m6A RNA Methylation Sites From a Multi-Layer Heterogeneous Network

Recent studies have revealed that the RNA N 6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification plays a critical role in a variety of biological processes and associated with multiple diseases including cancers. Till this day, transcriptome-wide m6A RNA methylation sites have been identified by high-throughput sequencing technique combined with computational methods, and the information is publicly available in a few bioinformatics databases; however, the association between individual m6A sites and various diseases are still largely unknown. There are yet computational approaches developed for investigating potential association between individual m6A sites and diseases, which represents a major challenge in the epitranscriptome analysis. Thus, to infer the disease-related m6A sites, we implemented a novel multi-layer heterogeneous network-based approach, which incorporates the associations among diseases, genes and m6A RNA methylation sites from gene expression, RNA methylation and disease similarities data with the Random Walk with Restart (RWR) algorithm. To evaluate the performance of the proposed approach, a ten-fold cross validation is performed, in which our approach achieved a reasonable good performance (overall AUC: 0.827, average AUC 0.867), higher than a hypergeometric test-based approach (overall AUC: 0.7333 and average AUC: 0.723) and a random predictor (overall AUC: 0.550 and average AUC: 0.486). Additionally, we show that a number of predicted cancer-associated m6A sites are supported by existing literatures, suggesting that the proposed approach can effectively uncover the underlying epitranscriptome circuits of disease mechanisms. An online database DRUM, which stands for disease-associated ribonucleic acid methylation, was built to support the query of disease-associated RNA m6A methylation sites, and is freely available at: www.xjtlu.edu.cn/biologicalsciences/drum.

Simultaneous remediation of As(III) and dibutyl phthalate (DBP) in soil by a manganese-oxidizing bacterium and its mechanisms

Soils are experiencing increasing pollution with arsenic (As) and phthalate esters (PAEs), which is threatening human health. In this study, the feasibility of simultaneous remediation of soil As(III) and a PAE, dibutyl phthalate (DBP), by a manganese-oxidizing bacterium (MnOB) was evaluated. As immobilization and DBP degradation were simultaneously enhanced by MnOB addition. The effects of initial concentrations of As(III), DBP, and Mn(II), and moisture content on the removal of As(III) and DBP were investigated. The results indicated that there was a competitive interaction between As(III) and DBP removal, and 40 mg/kg of Mn(II) dosage and 20%-30% soil moisture content were recommended for optimal and simultaneous removal of As(III) and DBP. Microbial community analysis revealed that community structure and diversity were not changed significantly by MnOB addition. Taken together, the findings from this study indicated that DBP was degraded primarily by microorganisms, whereas As(III) was removed largely by biogenic Mn oxides and immobilized by adsorption onto Mg/Fe oxides and/or formation of metal arsenate precipitates/co-precipitates. This study offers a novel and high-efficiency strategy to remediate the combined contamination of As and PAEs in soils.

Graphene oxide-film-coated splitting ratio-adjustable Mach-Zehnder interferometer for relative humidity sensing

In this paper, a splitting ratio-adjustable Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) for the measurement of relative humidity (RH) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The sensing head contains three sections of single mode fiber (SMF) and two sections of multimode fiber (MMF), in which the two MMFs are spliced among the three SMFs. The MMFs are corroded with hydrofluoric acid and act as mode couplers to split and recombine light owing to the core diameter mismatch with the SMF. A layer of graphene oxide (GO) is coated on the MMFs by dip-coating and natural evaporation. The effective refractive index of the GO will vary when it absorbs the water molecules. As a result, the intensity of the transmission light in the core and cladding of the single mode fiber can be adjusted. Thus, the intensity of the resonant dip will vary when the relative humidity changes. The experimental results show that a humidity sensitivity of 0.263 dB/RH% with a linear correlation coefficient of 99% can be achieved in a relative humidity range of 35% to 85%.

Applying Eye Tracking to Identify Autism Spectrum Disorder in Children

Eye tracking (ET) holds potential for the early detection of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). To overcome the difficulties of working with young children, developing a short and informative paradigm is crucial for ET. We investigated the fixation times of 37 ASD and 37 typically developing (TD) children ages 4-6 watching a 10-second video of a female speaking. ASD children showed significant reductions in fixation time at six areas of interest. Furthermore, discriminant analysis revealed fixation times at the mouth and body could significantly discriminate ASD from TD with a classification accuracy of 85.1%, sensitivity of 86.5%, and specificity of 83.8%. Our study suggests that a short video clip may provide enough information to distinguish ASD from TD children.

Publisher Correction: Deacetylation of serine hydroxymethyl-transferase 2 by SIRT3 promotes colorectal carcinogenesis

The original version of this Article contained an error in the Data Availability Statement. The accession code indicated '53V' and should have read '5X3V'. This has been corrected in both PDF and HTML versions of the Article.