In silico genome-wide analysis of homeodomain-leucine zipper transcription factors in Cannabis sativa L

HD-Zip (Homeodomain-Leucine Zipper) is a family of transcription factors unique to higher plants and plays a vital role in plant growth and development. Increasing research results show that HD-Zip transcription factors are widely involved in many life processes in plants. However, the HD-Zip transcription factor for cannabis, a valuable crop, has not yet been identified. The sequence characteristics, chromosome localization, system evolution, conservative motif, gene structure, and gene expression of the HD-Zip transcription factor in the cannabis genome were systematically studied. Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was used to verify its function. The results showed that cannabis contained 33 HD-Zip gene members. The number of amino acids is 136-849aa, the isoelectric point is 4.54-9.04, and the molecular weight is 23264.32-93147.87Da. Many cis-acting elements are corresponding to hormone and abiotic stress in the HD-Zip family promoter area of cannabis. Sequencing of the transcriptome at 5 tissue sites of hemp, stems, leaves, bracts, and seeds showed similar levels of expression of 33 members of the HD-Zip gene family at 5 tissue sites. Bioinformatics results show that HD-Zip expression is tissue-specific and may be influenced by hormones and environmental factors. This lays a foundation for further research on the gene function of HD-Zip.

Protective behaviors against COVID-19 and their association with psychological factors in China and South Korea during the Omicron wave: a comparative study

OBJECTIVES

We aimed to explore the level of protective behaviors against COVID-19 and its association with psychological factors in China and South Korea during the Omicron wave.

STUDY DESIGN

Cross-sectional study.

METHODS

We conducted a population-based cross-sectional survey from March 15 to 30, 2023 in China and South Korea. Demographic characteristics, health status, protective behaviors, and psychological factors (including perceived risks, efficacy belief, attribution of disease, fear of COVID-19, trust and evaluation, fatalism, resilience, and pandemic fatigue) were investigated. After adjusting for sociodemographic and health-related factors, multivariable regression models were constructed to explore the psychological influencing factors of protective behavior.

RESULTS

A total of 3000 participants from China and 1000 participants from Korea were included in the final analysis. The mean performance score for protective behaviors among all respondents was 2.885 in China and 3.139 in Korea, with scores ranging from 1 to 4. In China, performance scores were higher in those who were female, aged 30-39, employed, married, living in urban areas, having the highest income level, having the best subjective health status, and having a history of chronic disease (P-value <0.05). In Korea, performance scores were higher for individuals who were female, over 50 years old, educated to high school or below, unemployed, married, had a history of chronic disease, and had never been infected with SARS-CoV-2 (P-value <0.05). In the multivariable regression model, perceived severity (β = 0.067), attribution of disease (β = 0.121), fear of COVID-19 (β = 0.128), trust and evaluation (β = 0.097), psychological resilience (β = 0.068), and efficacy belief (β = 0.216) were positively associated with the performance scores, pandemic fatigue (β = -0.089) was negatively associated with performance scores in China (P-value <0.05). However, in Korea, perceived susceptibility (β = 0.075), fear of COVID-19 (β = 0.107), and efficacy belief (β = 0.357) were positively associated with protective behaviors (P-value <0.05), trust and evaluation (β = -0.078) and pandemic fatigue (β = -0.063) were negatively associated with performance scores (P-value <0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Populations in both China and Korea demonstrated great compliance with protective behaviors during the Omicron wave. Because of the sociocultural, economic, and political differences, there were differences in the association between psychological factors and protective behaviors in the two countries. This study, from the perspective of psychological factors in different cultural contexts, would provide references for increasing adherence to protective guidelines in future outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases.

Polydopamine based photothermal/photodynamic synchronous coating modified intraocular lens for efficient and safer posterior capsule opacification prevention

Posterior capsule opacification (PCO), as one of the most common late complications after intraocular lens (IOL) implantation in cataract surgery, seriously affects patients' postoperative vision and surgical satisfaction, and can only be treated by laser incision of the posterior capsule. Although drug eluting coating modification have been proved to inhibit PCO effectively, the complicated coating methods and the potential toxicity of the antiproliferative drugs hinders its actual application. In this study, an indocyanine green (ICG) loaded polydopamine (PDA) coating modified IOL (IP-IOL) was designed to prevented PCO. In vitro and in vivo studies have shown that IP-IOL can effectively eliminate lens epithelial cells and significantly reduce the degree of PCO. At the same time, it still has good imaging quality and optical properties. Furthermore, both the near-infrared irradiation and ICG loaded PDA coating modified IOLs have proved to possess high biological safety to eyes. Thus, with easy preparation and safer near-infrared irradiated photothermal/photodynamic synchronous properties, such ICG loaded PDA coating provides an effective yet easier and safer PCO prevention after IOL implantation.

Bioprinting of inorganic-biomaterial/neural-stem-cell constructs for multiple tissue regeneration and functional recovery

Tissue regeneration is a complicated process that relies on the coordinated effort of the nervous, vascular and immune systems. While the nervous system plays a crucial role in tissue regeneration, current tissue engineering approaches mainly focus on restoring the function of injury-related cells, neglecting the guidance provided by nerves. This has led to unsatisfactory therapeutic outcomes. Herein, we propose a new generation of engineered neural constructs from the perspective of neural induction, which offers a versatile platform for promoting multiple tissue regeneration. Specifically, neural constructs consist of inorganic biomaterials and neural stem cells (NSCs), where the inorganic biomaterials endows NSCs with enhanced biological activities including proliferation and neural differentiation. Through animal experiments, we show the effectiveness of neural constructs in repairing central nervous system injuries with function recovery. More importantly, neural constructs also stimulate osteogenesis, angiogenesis and neuromuscular junction formation, thus promoting the regeneration of bone and skeletal muscle, exhibiting its versatile therapeutic performance. These findings suggest that the inorganic-biomaterial/NSC-based neural platform represents a promising avenue for inducing the regeneration and function recovery of varying tissues and organs.

Clinical characteristics, outcomes and risk factors for mortality in hospitalized diabetes and chronic kidney disease patients after COVID-19 infection following widespread vaccination

BACKGROUND

COVID-19 poses a significant threat to patients with comorbidities, such as diabetes and chronic kidney disease (CKD). China experienced a nationwide COVID-19 endemic from December 2022 to January 2023, which is the first occurrence of such an outbreak following China's widespread administration of COVID-19 vaccinations.

METHODS

A total of 338 patients with diabetes and CKD combined with COVID-19 infection between December 7, 2022 and January 31, 2023 were included in this study. The end follow-up date was February 10, 2023. Univariate analysis and multivariate Cox analysis were used to analyze risk factors for death.

RESULTS

During the 50-day median follow-up period, 90 patients in the study cohort died, for a mortality rate of 26.63%. The median age of the study cohort was 74 years, with a male predominance of 74%. During hospitalization, 21% of patients had incident AKI, 17% of patients experienced stroke, and 40% of patients experienced respiratory failure. Cox proportional hazard regression showed that older age, a diagnosis of severe or critically severe COVID-19 infection, incident AKI and respiratory failure, higher level of average values of fasting glucose during hospitalization, UA, and total bilirubin were independent risk factors for death in our multivariate model.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings highlight the critical importance of identifying and managing comorbid risk factors for COVID-19, especially among the elderly, in order to optimize clinical outcomes, even after COVID-19 vaccination.

3D Printing of Cobalt-Incorporated Chloroapatite Bioceramic Composite Scaffolds with Antioxidative Activity for Enhanced Osteochondral Regeneration

Osteochondral defects are often accompanied by excessive reactive oxygen species (ROS) caused by osteoarthritis or acute surgical inflammation. An inflammatory environment containing excess ROS will not only hinder tissue regeneration but also impact the quality of newly formed tissues. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop scaffolds with both ROS scavenging and osteochondral repair functions to promote and protect osteochondral tissue regeneration. In this work, by using 3D printing technology, a composite scaffold based on cobalt-incorporated chloroapatite (Co-ClAP) bioceramics, which possesses ROS-scavenging activity and can support cell proliferation, adhesion, and differentiation, is developed. Benefiting from the catalytic activity of Co-ClAP bioceramics, the composite scaffold can protect cells from oxidative damage under ROS-excessive conditions, support their directional differentiation, and simultaneously mediate an anti-inflammatory microenvironment. In addition, it is also confirmed by using rabbit osteochondral defect model that the Co-ClAP/poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) scaffold can effectively promote the integrated regeneration of cartilage and subchondral bone, exhibiting an ideal repair effect in vivo. This study provides a promising strategy for the treatment of defects with excess ROS and inflammatory microenvironments.

The complete chloroplast genome sequence of Jacobaea cannabifolia

Jacobaea cannabifolia is a widely used medicinal plant. The total length of the chloroplast genome was 151,390 bp, and it comprised a large single-copy (LSC, 83,432 bp) region, a small single-copy (SSC, 18,304 bp) region, and a pair of inverted repeats (IRs, 49,654 bp). A total of 130 coding genes were annotated, including 88 protein-coding genes, 8 rRNA genes, and 34 tRNA genes. A phylogenetic tree was showed that J. cannabifolia and other species of the same genus clustered together.

Protective Effects of Astaxanthin on Ochratoxin A-Induced Liver Injury: Effects of Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress and Mitochondrial Fission-Fusion Balance

Ochratoxin A (OTA), a common mycotoxin, can contaminate food and feed and is difficult to remove. Astaxanthin (ASTA), a natural antioxidant, can effectively protect against OTA-induced hepatotoxicity; however, its mechanism of action remains unclear. In the present study, we elucidate the protective effects of ASTA on the OTA-induced damage of the endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria in broiler liver samples by serum biochemical analysis, antioxidant analysis, qRT-PCR, and Western blot analysis. ASTA inhibited the expressions of ahr, pxr, car, cyp1a1, cyp1a5, cyp2c18, cyp2d6, and cyp3a9 genes, and significantly alleviated OTA-induced liver oxidative damage (SOD, GSH-Px, GSH, MDA). Furthermore, it inhibited OTA-activated endoplasmic reticulum stress genes and proteins (grp94, GRP78, atf4, ATF6, perk, eif2α, ire1, CHOP). ASTA alleviated OTA-induced mitochondrial dynamic imbalance, inhibited mitochondrial division (DRP1, mff), and promoted mitochondrial fusion (OPA1, MFN1, MFN2). In conclusion, ASTA can decrease OTA-induced oxidative damage, thereby alleviating endoplasmic reticulum stress and mitochondrial dynamic imbalance.

Trollius chinensis Bunge: A Comprehensive Review of Research on Botany, Materia Medica, Ethnopharmacological Use, Phytochemistry, Pharmacology, and Quality Control

Trollius chinensis Bunge, a perennial herb belonging to the Ranunculaceae family, has been extensively used in traditional Chinese medicine. Documented in the Supplements to the Compendium of Materia Medica, its medicinal properties encompass a spectrum of applications, including heat clearance, detoxification, alleviation of oral/throat sores, earaches, eye pain, cold-induced fever, and vision improvement. Furthermore, T. chinensis is used in clinical settings to treat upper respiratory infections, pharyngitis, tonsillitis, esoenteritis, canker, bronchitis, etc. It is mainly used to treat inflammation, such as inflammation of the upper respiratory tract and nasal mucosa. This comprehensive review explores the evolving scientific understanding of T. chinensis, covering facets of botany, materia medica, ethnopharmacological use, phytochemistry, pharmacology, and quality control. In particular, the chemical constituents and pharmacological research are reviewed. Polyphenols, mainly flavonoids and phenolic acids, are highly abundant among T. chinensis and are responsible for antiviral, antimicrobial, and antioxidant activities. The flower additionally harbors trace amounts of volatile oil, polysaccharides, and other bioactive compounds. The active ingredients of the flower have fewer side effects, and it is used in children because of its minimal side effects, which has great research potential. These findings validate the traditional uses of T. chinensis and lay the groundwork for further scientific exploration. The sources utilized in this study encompass Web of Science, Pubmed, CNKI site, classic monographs, Chinese Pharmacopoeia, Chinese Medicine Dictionary, and doctoral and master's theses.

Prognostic Analysis of Prophylactic Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy for Advanced Gastric Cancer: a Propensity Score-Matched Analysis

PURPOSE

To investigate the efficacy of prophylactic hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) for advanced gastric cancer (AGC).

METHODS

We included 198 patients treated from December 2016 to January 2019; of these patients, the 132 who had clinical T4 gastric cancer were divided into a hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy group (HIPEC group) and a radical gastrectomy and D2 lymph node dissection group (control group). Because this study was retrospective, we used propensity score matching (PSM) to reduce selectivity bias; we then assessed risk factors for recurrence and compared prognosis in terms of survival in the gastrectomy and prophylactic HIPEC groups.

RESULTS

Prophylactic HIPEC reduced the risk of postoperative peritoneal metastasis (PM: 27.5% vs. 10.5%, P = 0.015) and did not increase the risk of postoperative complications, but there was no significant difference in the effect on hepatic metastases or other distant metastases. Risk factors for recurrence included pT4 staging and positive lymph node metastases. Both disease-free survival (DFS: HR 0.592; 95% CI 0.354-0.990; P = 0.042) and peritoneal recurrence-free survival (PFS: HR 0.314; 95% CI 0.127-0.774; P = 0.008) were better in the prophylactic HIPEC group than in the gastrectomy-only group. In addition, there was no difference in the prognosis of patients between the two groups of raltitrexed (RT) and paclitaxel (PTX) for perfusion dosing.

CONCLUSION

Our study showed that prophylactic HIPEC could prevent postoperative PM in patients with AGC and did not increase the incidence of postoperative complications. However, it was not found to be effective in the prevention of other metastases, such as hepatic metastases.

Joint Optimization of Class-Specific Training- and Test-Time Data Augmentation in Segmentation

This paper presents an effective and general data augmentation framework for medical image segmentation. We adopt a computationally efficient and data-efficient gradient-based meta-learning scheme to explicitly align the distribution of training and validation data which is used as a proxy for unseen test data. We improve the current data augmentation strategies with two core designs. First, we learn class-specific training-time data augmentation (TRA) effectively increasing the heterogeneity within the training subsets and tackling the class imbalance common in segmentation. Second, we jointly optimize TRA and test-time data augmentation (TEA), which are closely connected as both aim to align the training and test data distribution but were so far considered separately in previous works. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method on four medical image segmentation tasks across different scenarios with two state-of-the-art segmentation models, DeepMedic and nnU-Net. Extensive experimentation shows that the proposed data augmentation framework can significantly and consistently improve the segmentation performance when compared to existing solutions. Code is publicly available at https://github.com/ZerojumpLine/JCSAugment.

RAP80 Phase Separation at DNA Double-Strand Break Promotes BRCA1 Recruitment and Tumor Radio-Resistance

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVE(S)

RAP80 has been characterized as a component of the BRCA1-A complex and is responsible for the recruitment of BRCA1 to DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs). However, we and others found that the recruitment of RAP80 and BRCA1 are not absolutely temporally synchronized, indicating that other mechanisms, apart from physical interaction, may be implicated. Recently, we and other groups have reported that liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) is a pivotal mechanism underlying DNA repair factors condensation at DSBs and their function. In this study, we aim to disclose whether RAP80 undergoes LLPS at DSBs and whether it is required for BRCA1 recruitment.

MATERIALS/METHODS

To verify RAP80 is an LLPS protein and its function in DNA damage response (DDR): (1) candidate-mEGFP fusion protein formed condensates in cells and showed fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP); (2) candidate protein was expressed in Escherichia coli and purified with GST; (3) intrinsically disordered region (IDR) of RAP80 were predicted and tested in cell and in vitro; (4) lentivirus were used to construct RAP80-Knock out (KO) and RAP80 re-expression cell lines; (5) length gradient K63 poly-ubiquitin chains were chemically synthesized and incubated with RAP80 protein in vitro; (6) BRCA1 and RAP80 location were determined through immunofluorescence; (7) RAP80 protein expression in tissue was determined by IHC staining.

RESULTS

Thin layer scanning and 3D reconstruction of the RAP80-mEGFP-expressing cells under a fluorescence microscope showed that RAP80-mEGFP formed spherical condensates with fast FRAP. Observation of purified proteins revealed that GST-RAP80-mEGFP protein formed liquid-like droplets, presenting as a FRAP and the fusion event among adjacent droplets. PEG-8000 and Ficol-400 strengthened the formation of GST-RAP80-mEGFP droplets in vitro. Later, we used a previously developed optoIDR tool to verify that IDR1 (1-254aa) is critical for RAP80 LLPS. To investigate whether the interaction between RAP80 and K63 poly-ubiquitin chains could enhance the condensation of RAP80, we chemically synthesized K63 ubiquitin chains and incubated them with purified GST-RAP80-mCherry proteins. The results showed that supplementation of ubiquitin multipolymer (poly-ubiquitin) significantly induced the LLPS of RAP80, and the ability of RAP80 condensates formation potency was positively correlated with the length of the ubiquitin chain. Consistent with their LLPS capacity, RAP80-WT-mEGFP, RAP80-(IDR1+AIR)-mEGFP groups showed prominent BRCA1 foci, while RAP80-IDR1-mEGFP and RAP80-(SIM+UIM)-mEGFP groups showed delayed BRCA1 recruitment. In rectal cancer tissues, positive staining of the RAP80 protein was mainly observed in the nucleus of cancer cells and high RAP80 expression was correlated with a shorter overall survival time.

CONCLUSION

RAP80 undergoes LLPS to form liquid-like condensates at DSB sites, which is important for BRCA1 recruitment and enhances tumor radio-resistance.

Polyhedron-Like Biomaterials for Innervated and Vascularized Bone Regeneration

Neural-vascular networks are densely distributed through periosteum, cortical bone, and cancellous bone, which is of great significance for bone regeneration and remodeling. Although significant progress has been made in bone tissue engineering, ineffective bone regeneration, and delayed osteointegration still remains an issue due to the ignorance of intrabony nerves and blood vessels. Herein, inspired by space-filling polyhedra with open architectures, polyhedron-like scaffolds with spatial topologies are prepared via 3D-printing technology to mimic the meshwork structure of cancellous bone. Benefiting from its spatial topologies, polyhedron-like scaffolds greatly promoted the osteogenic differentiation of bone mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) via activating PI3K-Akt signals, and exhibiting satisfactory performance on angiogenesis and neurogenesis. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation elucidates that polyhedron-like scaffolds have a relatively lower area-weighted average static pressure, which is beneficial to osteogenesis. Furthermore, in vivo experiments further demonstrate that polyhedron-like scaffolds obviously promote bone formation and osteointegration, as well as inducing vascularization and ingrowth of nerves, leading to innervated and vascularized bone regeneration. Taken together, this work offers a promising approach for fabricating multifunctional scaffolds without additional exogenous seeding cells and growth factors, which holds great potential for functional tissue regeneration and further clinical translation.

NIR-triggered thermosensitive polymer brush coating modified intraocular lens for smart prevention of posterior capsular opacification

Posterior capsule opacification (PCO) is the most common complication after cataract surgery. Drug-eluting intraocular lens (IOLs) is a promising concept of PCO treatment in modern cataract surgery. However, the large dose of drugs in IOL leads to uncontrollable and unpredictable drug release, which inevitably brings risks of overtreatment and ocular toxicity. Herein, a low-power NIR-triggered thermosensitive IOL named IDG@P(NIPAM-co-AA)-IOL is proposed to improve security and prevent PCO by synergetic controlled drug therapy and simultaneous photo-therapy. Thermosensitive polymer brushes Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-Acrylic acid) (P(NIPAM-co-AA)) is prepared on IOL via surface-initiated reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (SI-RAFT) polymerization. Then, Doxorubicin (DOX) and Indocyanine green (ICG) co-loaded Gelatin NPs (IDG NPs) are loaded in P(NIPAM-co-AA) by temperature control. The IDG NPs perform in suit photodynamic & photothermal therapy (PTT&PDT), and the produced heat also provides a trigger for controllable drug therapy with a cascade effect. Such functional IOL shows excellent synergistic drug-phototherapy effect and NIR-triggered drug release behavior. And there is no obvious PCO occurrence in IDG@P(NIPAM-co-AA) IOL under NIR irradiation compared with control group. This proposed IDG@P(NIPAM-co-AA)-IOL serves as a promising platform that combines phototherapy and drug-therapy to enhance the therapeutic potential and medication safety for future clinical application of PCO treatment.

New scoring system combining computed tomography body composition analysis and inflammatory-nutritional indicators to predict postoperative complications in stage II-III colon cancer

BACKGROUND AND AIM

Postoperative complications are important clinical outcomes for colon cancer patients. This study aimed to investigate the predictive value of inflammatory-nutritional indicators combined with computed tomography body composition on postoperative complications in patients with stage II-III colon cancer.

METHODS

We retrospectively collected data from patients with stage II-III colon cancer admitted to our hospital from 2017 to 2021, including 198 patients in the training cohort and 50 patients in the validation cohort. Inflammatory-nutritional indicators and body composition were included in the univariate and multivariate analyses. Binary regression was used to develop a nomogram and evaluate its predictive value.

RESULTS

In the multivariate analysis, the monocyte-lymphocyte ratio (MLR), systemic immune-inflammation index (SII), nutritional risk score (NRS), skeletal muscle index (SMI), and visceral fat index (VFI) were independent risk factors for postoperative complications of stage II-III colon cancer. In the training cohort, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the predictive model was 0.825 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.764-0.886). In the validation cohort, it was 0.901 (95% CI 0.816-0.986). The calibration curve showed that the prediction results were in good agreement with the observational results. Decision curve analysis showed that colon cancer patients could benefit from the predictive model.

CONCLUSIONS

A nomogram combining MLR, SII, NRS, SMI, and VFI with good accuracy and reliability in predicting postoperative complications in patients with stage II-III colon cancer was established, which can help guide treatment decisions.

3D multicellular micropatterning biomaterials for hair regeneration and vascularization

Hair loss caused by the abnormal functions of hair follicles in skin can seriously impact the quality of an individual's life. The development of sophisticated skin tissue-engineered constructs is required to enable the function recovery of hair follicles. However, effective hair regrowth in skin substitutes still remains a great challenge. In this study, a 3D multicellular micropattern was successfully fabricated by arranging the hair follicle-related cells orderly distributed in the interval of vascular-cell networks via bioprinting technology. By combining the stable biomimetic micropattern structure and the bio-inducing substrate incorporated with magnesium silicate (MS) nanomaterials, the 3D multicellular micropattern possessed significant follicular potential and angiogenic capacity in vitro. Furthermore, the 3D multicellular micropattern with MS incorporation contributed to efficient hair regrowth during skin tissue regeneration in both immunodeficient mice and androgenetic alopecia (AGA) mice models. Thus, this study proposes a novel 3D micropatterned multicellular system assembling a biomimetic micro-structure and modulating the cell-cell interaction for hair regeneration during skin reconstruction.

Multiple mycotoxins in commonly used edible oils: Occurrence and evaluation of potential health risks

In this study, the contamination of 51 mycotoxins in 416 edible oils were determined by UPLC-MS/MS. Totally, twenty-four mycotoxins were detected and nearly half of the samples (46.9%, n = 195) were contaminated simultaneously with six to nine kinds of mycotoxins. The predominant mycotoxins and contamination characteristics varied depending on the type of oils. More specifically, four enniatins, alternariol monomethyl ether (AME) and zearalenone were the most frequent combination. Overall, peanut and sesame oils (10.7-11.7 mycotoxins on average) were found to be the most contaminated matrices whereas camellia and sunflower seed oils (1.8-2.7 species) were the opposite. Dietary exposure risks of mycotoxins were acceptable in most cases, however, the ingestion of aflatoxins (especially aflatoxin B₁) through peanut and sesame oil (margin of exposure: 239.4-386.3 < 10000) exceeded the acceptable carcinogenic risk level. Meanwhile, the risks of cumulative ingestion through the food chain should be of great concern, especially sterigmatocystin, ochratoxin A, AME and zearalenone.

Preparation and Properties of Medium-Density Fiberboards Bonded with Vanillin Crosslinked Chitosan

An eco-friendly medium-density fiberboard (MDF) was prepared using vanillin (V) crosslinked chitosan (CS) adhesive through a hot-pressing process. The cross-linking mechanism and the effect of different proportions of added chitosan/vanillin on the mechanical properties and dimensional stability of MDF were investigated. The results showed that vanillin and chitosan are crosslinked to form a three-dimensional network structure due to the Schiff base reaction between the aldehyde group of vanillin and the amino group of chitosan. At the same time, when the mass ratio between vanillin/chitosan was 2:1, MDF obtained the best mechanical properties, the maximum modulus of rupture (MOR) of 20.64 MPa, the mean modulus of elasticity (MOE) of 3005 MPa, the mean internal bonding (IB) of 0.86 MPa, and the mean thickness swelling (TS) of 14.7%. Therefore, the MDF bonded with V-crosslinked CS can be a promising candidate for environmentally-friendly wood-based panels.

Metal-Organic Framework Functionalized Bioceramic Scaffolds with Antioxidative Activity for Enhanced Osteochondral Regeneration

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative disease that often causes cartilage lesions and even osteochondral damage. Osteochondral defects induced by OA are accompanied by an inflammatory arthrosis microenvironment with overproduced reactive oxygen species (ROS), resulting in the exacerbation of defects and difficulty regenerating osteochondral tissues. Therefore, it is urgently needed to develop osteochondral scaffolds that can not only promote the integrated regeneration of cartilage and subchondral bone, but also possess ROS-scavenging ability to protect tissues from oxidative stress. Herein, zinc-cobalt bimetallic organic framework (Zn/Co-MOF) functionalized bioceramic scaffolds are designed for repairing osteochondral defects under OA environment. By functionalizing Zn/Co-MOF on the 3D-printed beta-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) scaffolds, the Zn/Co-MOF functionalized β-TCP (MOF-TCP) scaffolds with broad-spectrum ROS-scavenging ability are successfully developed. Benefiting from its catalytic active sites and degradation products, Zn/Co-MOF endows the scaffolds with excellent antioxidative and anti-inflammatory properties to protect cells from ROS invasion, as well as dual-bioactivities of simultaneously inducing osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation in vitro. Furthermore, in vivo results confirm that MOF-TCP scaffolds accelerate the integrated regeneration of cartilage and subchondral bone in severe osteochondral defects. This study offers a promising strategy for treating defects induced by OA as well as other inflammatory diseases.

Multicellular Bioprinting of Biomimetic Inks for Tendon-to-Bone Regeneration

Tendon-to-bone interface has a hierarchical structure and gradient component that are conducive to distributing the stresses to achieve movement. Conventional biomaterials lack the capacity to induce synchronous repair of multiple tissues, resulting in the failure of the interface repair. Biomimetic strategies have attracted enormous attention in the field of complex structure regeneration because they can meet the different physiological requirements of multiple tissues. Herein, a biomimetic ink mimicking tendon/bone tissues is developed by combining tendon/bone-related cells and Mo-containing silicate (MS) bioceramics. Subsequently, biomimetic multicellular scaffolds are fabricated to achieve the simulation of the hierarchical structure and cellular composition of tendon-to-bone interfaces by the spatial distribution of the biomimetic inks via 3D bioprinting, which is of great significance for inducing the regeneration of complex structures in the interface region. In addition, attributed to the desirable ionic microenvironment created by MS bioceramics, the biomimetic scaffolds possess the dual function of inducing tendon/bone-related cells tenogenic and osteogenic differentiation in vitro, and promote the integrated regeneration of tendon-to-bone interfaces in vivo. The study offers a feasible strategy to construct biomimetic multicellular scaffolds with bifunction for inducing multi-lineage tissue regeneration, especially for regenerating soft-to-hard tissue interfaces.

Genome-wide identification of the NAC transcription factor family and regulation of metabolites under salt stress in Isatis indigotica

NAC (NAM, ATAF1/2 and CUC2) transcription factors (TFs) are a class of TFs families unique to plants, which not only play an important role in the growth and developmental stages of plants but also function in response to stress and regulation of secondary metabolite biosynthesis. However, there are few studies on NAC genes in the medicinal plant Isatis indigotica. In this study, 96 IiNAC genes were identified based on the whole-genome data of I. indigotica, distributed in seven chromosomes and three contigs. IiNAC genes were structurally conserved and divided into 15 subgroups. Cis-elements were identified in the promoter region of the IiNAC gene in response to plant growth and development, abiotic stresses and hormones. In addition, transcriptome and metabolome data of I. indigotica leaves under salt stress were analyzed to construct a network of IiNAC gene co-expression and metabolite association. Ten differentially expressed IiNAC genes were co-expressed with 109 TFs, and Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses revealed that most of these genes were associated with plant growth and development and abiotic stress responses. Eleven IiNAC genes were positively associated with 72 metabolites. Eleven IiNAC genes were positively or negatively associated with 47 metabolites through 37 TFs. Commonly associated secondary metabolites include two terpenoids, abscisic acid and bilobalide, two flavonoids, dihydrokaempferol and syringaldehyde, a coumarin, 7-methoxycoumarin, an alkaloid, lupinine, and quinone dihydrotanshinone I. This study provides important data to support the identification of the NAC gene family in I. indigotica and the regulatory functions of IiNAC genes in metabolites under salt stress.

3D printing of conch-like scaffolds for guiding cell migration and directional bone growth

Regeneration of severe bone defects remains an enormous challenge in clinic. Developing regenerative scaffolds to directionally guide bone growth is a potential strategy to overcome this hurdle. Conch, an interesting creature widely spreading in ocean, has tough spiral shell that can continuously grow along the spiral direction. Herein, inspired by the physiological features of conches, a conch-like (CL) scaffold based on β-TCP bioceramic material was successfully prepared for guiding directional bone growth via digital light processing (DLP)-based 3D printing. Benefiting from the spiral structure, the CL scaffolds significantly improved cell adhesion, proliferation and osteogenic differentiation in vitro compared to the conventional 3D scaffolds. Particularly, the spiral structure in the scaffolds could efficiently induce cells to migrate from the bottom to the top of the scaffolds, which was like “cells climbing stairs”. Furthermore, the capability of guiding directional bone growth for the CL scaffolds was demonstrated by a special half-embedded femoral defects model in rabbits. The new bone tissue could consecutively grow into the protruded part of the scaffolds along the spiral cavities. This work provides a promising strategy to construct biomimetic biomaterials for guiding directional bone tissue growth, which offers a new treatment concept for severe bone defects, and even limb regeneration.

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A conch-like scaffold was firstly developed for guiding directional bone growth.

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The CL scaffolds efficiently induced cells “climbing stairs”- like-migrating.

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The CL scaffolds showed improved bioactivities benefited from the spiral structure.

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This work provided a new treatment concept for severe bone defects.

Region-focused multi-view transformer-based generative adversarial network for cardiac cine MRI reconstruction

Cardiac cine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) reconstruction is challenging due to spatial and temporal resolution trade-offs. Temporal correlation in cardiac cine MRI is informative and vital for understanding cardiac dynamic motion. Exploiting the temporal correlations in cine reconstruction is crucial to resolve aliasing artifacts and maintaining the cardiac motion patterns. However, existing methods have the following shortcomings: (1) they simultaneously compute pairwise correlations along spatial and temporal dimensions to establish dependencies, ignoring that learning spatial contextual information first will benefit the temporal modeling. (2) most studies neglect to focus on reconstructing the local cardiac regions, resulting in insufficient reconstruction accuracy due to a relatively large field of view. To address these problems, we propose a region-focused multi-view transformer-based generative adversarial network for cardiac cine MRI reconstruction. The proposed transformer divides consecutive cardiac frames into multiple views for cross-view feature extraction, establishing long-distance dependencies among features and effectively learning the spatio-temporal information. We further design a cross-view attention for spatio-temporal information fusion, ensuring the interaction of different spatio-temporal information in each view and capturing more temporal correlations of the cardiac motion. In addition, we introduce a cardiac region detection loss for improving the reconstruction quality of the cardiac region. Experimental results demonstrated that our method outperforms state-of-the-art methods. Especially with an acceleration factor as high as 10×, our method can reconstruct images with better accuracy and perceptual quality.

Causality-Inspired Single-Source Domain Generalization for Medical Image Segmentation

Deep learning models usually suffer from the domain shift issue, where models trained on one source domain do not generalize well to other unseen domains. In this work, we investigate the single-source domain generalization problem: training a deep network that is robust to unseen domains, under the condition that training data are only available from one source domain, which is common in medical imaging applications. We tackle this problem in the context of cross-domain medical image segmentation. In this scenario, domain shifts are mainly caused by different acquisition processes. We propose a simple causality-inspired data augmentation approach to expose a segmentation model to synthesized domain-shifted training examples. Specifically, 1) to make the deep model robust to discrepancies in image intensities and textures, we employ a family of randomly-weighted shallow networks. They augment training images using diverse appearance transformations. 2) Further we show that spurious correlations among objects in an image are detrimental to domain robustness. These correlations might be taken by the network as domain-specific clues for making predictions, and they may break on unseen domains. We remove these spurious correlations via causal intervention. This is achieved by resampling the appearances of potentially correlated objects independently. The proposed approach is validated on three cross-domain segmentation scenarios: cross-modality (CT-MRI) abdominal image segmentation, cross-sequence (bSSFP-LGE) cardiac MRI segmentation, and cross-site prostate MRI segmentation. The proposed approach yields consistent performance gains compared with competitive methods when tested on unseen domains.

DUS evaluation of nine intersubgeneric hybrids of Paeonia lactiflora and fingerprint analysis of the chemical components in the roots

Intersubgeneric hybrids of Paeonia lactiflora (Paeonia lactiflora pall., P. lactiflora.) cover a huge variety of systems in the genus Paeonia. In recent years, many studies have confirmed that the intersubgeneric hybrids of P. lactiflora. are rich in paeoniflorin and other medicinal ingredients, however, it has always proved difficult to clarify the medicinal value of the hybrids and whether they can be used for medicinal purposes. In this study, the consistency of the plant population was evaluated through DUS evaluation, in order to clarify whether the selected research materials had stability and consistency within the population and specificity between populations. The differences between the paeoniflorin contents in the roots of the nine intersubgeneric hybrids of the P. lactiflora. varieties and two medicinal varieties were critically compared. The differences in the chemical components of the roots of nine intersubgeneric hybrids of P. lactiflora. and reference medicine substances of P. lactiflora. and Paeonia anomala subsp. veitchii (Lynch) D. Y. Hong and K. Y. Pan (Paeonia veitchii Lynch., P. veitchii.) were explored via stoichiometric and chemical fingerprint high performance liquid chromatography analyses. The results showed that there were significant differences in the chemical compositions between the intersubgeneric hybrids of P. lactiflora. and the medicinal reference materials, and the contents of paeoniflorin were elevated such that the hybrids could be used as the raw material for extraction of paeoniflorin, thus providing an opportunity to explore the medicinal value of the hybrids. This study explored the key differential components among the varieties and provides a reference and basis for the study of the medicinal value and the identification of the intersubgeneric hybrids of the P. lactiflora. varieties.

Cell-Laden Scaffolds for Vascular-Innervated Bone Regeneration

For regeneration of highly vascularized and innervated tissues, like bone, simultaneous ingrowth of blood vessels and nerves is essential but largely neglected. To address this issue, a "pre-angiogenic" cell-laden scaffold with durable angiogenic functions is prepared according to the bioactivities of silicate bioceramics and the instructive effects of vascular cells on neurogenesis and bone repair. Compared with traditional cell-free scaffolds, the prepared cell-laden scaffolds printed with active cells and bioactive inks can support long-term cell survival and growth for three weeks. The long-lived scaffolds exhibited durable angiogenic capability both in vitro and in vivo. The pre-angiogenic scaffolds can induce the neurogenetic differentiation of neural cells and the osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells by the synergistic effects of released bioactive ions and the ability of vascular cells to attract neurons. The enhanced bone regeneration with both vascularization and innervation is attributed to these physiological functions of the pre-angiogenic cell-laden scaffolds, which is defined as "vascular-innervated" bone regeneration. It is suggested that the concept of "vascular-innervated scaffolds" may represent the future direction of biomaterials for complex tissue/organ regeneration.

Identification and characterization of Dof genes in Cerasus humilis

Introduction

Dof genes encode plant-specific transcription factors, which regulate various biological processes such as growth, development, and secondary metabolite accumulation.

Methods

We conducted whole-genome analysis of Chinese dwarf cherry (Cerasus humilis) to identify ChDof genes and characterize the structure, motif composition, cis-acting elements, chromosomal distribution, and collinearity of these genes as well as the physical and chemical properties, amino acid sequences, and phylogenetic evolution of the encoded proteins.

Results

The results revealed the presence of 25 ChDof genes in C. humilis genome. All 25 ChDof genes could be divided into eight groups, and the members of the same group had similar motif arrangement and intron-exon structure. Promoter analysis showed that cis-acting elements responsive to abscisic acid, low temperature stress, and light were dominant. Transcriptome data revealed that most ChDof genes exhibited tissue-specific expression. Then, we performed by qRT-PCR to analyze the expression patterns of all 25 ChDof genes in fruit during storage. The results indicated that these genes exhibited different expression patterns, suggesting that they played an important role in fruit storage.

Discussion

The results of this study provide a basis for further investigation of the biological function of Dof genes in C. humilis fruit.

3D printing of cell-delivery scaffolds for tissue regeneration

Tissue engineering strategy that combine biomaterials with living cells has shown special advantages in tissue regeneration and promoted the development of regenerative medicine. In particular, the rising of 3D printing technology further enriched the structural design and composition of tissue engineering scaffolds, which also provided convenience for cell loading and cell delivery of living cells. In this review, two types of cell-delivery scaffolds for tissue regeneration, including 3D printed scaffolds with subsequent cell-seeding and 3D cells bioprinted scaffolds, are mainly reviewed. We devote a major part to present and discuss the recent advances of two 3D printed cell-delivery scaffolds in regeneration of various tissues, involving bone, cartilage, skin tissues etc. Although two types of 3D printed cell-delivery scaffolds have some shortcomings, they do have generally facilitated the exploration of tissue engineering scaffolds in multiple tissue regeneration. It is expected that 3D printed cell-delivery scaffolds will be further explored in function mechanism of seeding cells in vivo, precise mimicking of complex tissues and even organ reconstruction under the cooperation of multiple fields in future.

Adversarial counterfactual augmentation: application in Alzheimer's disease classification

Due to the limited availability of medical data, deep learning approaches for medical image analysis tend to generalise poorly to unseen data. Augmenting data during training with random transformations has been shown to help and became a ubiquitous technique for training neural networks. Here, we propose a novel adversarial counterfactual augmentation scheme that aims at finding the most effective synthesised images to improve downstream tasks, given a pre-trained generative model. Specifically, we construct an adversarial game where we update the input conditional factor of the generator and the downstream classifier with gradient backpropagation alternatively and iteratively. This can be viewed as finding the 'weakness' of the classifier and purposely forcing it to overcome its weakness via the generative model. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, we validate the method with the classification of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) as a downstream task. The pre-trained generative model synthesises brain images using age as conditional factor. Extensive experiments and ablation studies have been performed to show that the proposed approach improves classification performance and has potential to alleviate spurious correlations and catastrophic forgetting. Code: https://github.com/xiat0616/adversarial_counterfactual_augmentation.

Rapid and Economical Drug-Eluting IOL Preparation via Thermoresponsive Agarose Coating for Effective Posterior Capsular Opacification Prevention

Posterior capsular opacification (PCO), the highest incidence complication after cataract surgery, is mainly due to the attachment, proliferation, and migration of the residual lens epithelial cells (LECs). Although the drug-eluting IOLs have been proved to be an effective way to prevent PCO incidence, its preparations are time consuming and require tedious preparation steps. Herein, the thermoreversible agarose is adopted to prepare drug-eluting IOL. Such functional coating can be obtained easily by simple immersion in the antiproliferative drug containing hot agarose and taken out for cooling, which not only does not affect the optical property but also can effectively decrease the PCO incidence after intraocular implantation. As a result, the proposed agarose coating provides a rapid and economical alternative of drug-eluting IOL fabrication for PCO prevention.

MulViMotion: Shape-Aware 3D Myocardial Motion Tracking From Multi-View Cardiac MRI

Recovering the 3D motion of the heart from cine cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging enables the assessment of regional myocardial function and is important for understanding and analyzing cardiovascular disease. However, 3D cardiac motion estimation is challenging because the acquired cine CMR images are usually 2D slices which limit the accurate estimation of through-plane motion. To address this problem, we propose a novel multi-view motion estimation network (MulViMotion), which integrates 2D cine CMR images acquired in short-axis and long-axis planes to learn a consistent 3D motion field of the heart. In the proposed method, a hybrid 2D/3D network is built to generate dense 3D motion fields by learning fused representations from multi-view images. To ensure that the motion estimation is consistent in 3D, a shape regularization module is introduced during training, where shape information from multi-view images is exploited to provide weak supervision to 3D motion estimation. We extensively evaluate the proposed method on 2D cine CMR images from 580 subjects of the UK Biobank study for 3D motion tracking of the left ventricular myocardium. Experimental results show that the proposed method quantitatively and qualitatively outperforms competing methods.

[Exploration on teaching reform of cancer epidemiology course]

This study aims to explore optimized teaching mode of cancer epidemiology for undergraduates, and provide scientific ideas and basis for improving teaching quality. Non-randomized concurrent control study was used. Undergraduates, enrolled in 2018, from the department of preventive medicine in A and B medical universities were selected as research objects. Traditional teaching mode was used for cancer epidemiology course in A medical university, and innovative teaching mode named "one core, four dimensions" was adopted in B medical university. After the course, questionnaire method was used to investigate self-cognition of students, teaching satisfaction and class preparation time of teachers in B Medical University. The post-class test method was used to compare the students' grades of cancer epidemiology in the two universities. The results indicated that among the 58 students of B medical university, 94.83% (55/58) students were familiar with common types of epidemiological studies and 86.21% (50/58) mastered the evaluation indicators of screening research. Among the nine teaching faculties from B medical university, seven reported that the new teaching plan helped students to learn frontier knowledge of cancer epidemiology, and eight reported the new teaching model was conducive to the interaction between teachers and students. The text score of students in B medical university was 50.34±4.90, significantly higher than that in A medical university (46.21±4.91, t=5.20, P<0.001). The optimized teaching mode of cancer epidemiology is highly praised by students and teachers, which has the potential to improve students' grasp of cancer epidemiology, the ability to combine theory with practice, and the teaching effect of cancer epidemiology.

Mechanisms of helicase activated DNA end resection in bacteria

DNA end resection mediated by the coordinated action of nuclease and helicase is a crucial step in initiating homologous recombination. The end-resection apparatus NurA nuclease and HerA helicase are present in both archaea and bacteria. Here, we report the cryo-electron microscopy structure of a bacterial HerA-NurA complex from Deinococcus radiodurans. The structure reveals a barrel-like hexameric HerA and a distinctive NurA dimer subcomplex, which has a unique extended N-terminal region (ENR) involved in bacterial NurA dimerization and activation. In addition to the long protruding linking loop and the C-terminal α helix of NurA, the flexible ENR is close to the HerA-NurA interface and divides the central channel of the DrNurA dimer into two halves, suggesting a possible mechanism of DNA end processing. In summary, this work provides new insights into the structure, assembly, and activation mechanisms of bacterial DNA end resection mediated by a minimal end-resection apparatus.

MSX1 Drives Tooth Morphogenesis Through Controlling Wnt Signaling Activity

Tooth agenesis is a common structural birth defect in humans that results from failure of morphogenesis during early tooth development. The homeobox transcription factor Msx1 and the canonical Wnt signaling pathway are essential for "bud to cap" morphogenesis and are causal factors for tooth agenesis. Our recent study suggested that Msx1 regulates Wnt signaling during early tooth development by suppressing the expression of Dkk2 and Sfrp2 in the tooth bud mesenchyme, and it demonstrated partial rescue of Msx1-deficient molar teeth by a combination of DKK inhibition and genetic inactivation of SFRPs. In this study, we found that Sostdc1/Wise, another secreted Wnt antagonist, is involved in regulating the odontogenic pathway downstream of Msx1. Whereas Sostdc1 expression in the developing tooth germ was not increased in Msx1-/- embryos, genetic inactivation of Sostdc1 rescued maxillary molar, but not mandibular molar, morphogenesis in Msx1-/- mice with full penetrance. Since the Msx1-/-;Sostdc1-/- embryos exhibited ectopic Dkk2 expression in the developing dental mesenchyme, similar to Msx1-/- embryos, we generated and analyzed tooth development in Msx1-/-;Dkk2-/- double and Msx1-/-;Dkk2-/-;Sostdc1-/- triple mutant mice. The Msx1-/-;Dkk2-/- double mutants showed rescued maxillary molar morphogenesis at high penetrance, with a small percentage also exhibiting mandibular molars that transitioned to the cap stage. Furthermore, tooth development was rescued in the maxillary and mandibular molars, with full penetrance, in the Msx1-/-;Dkk2-/-;Sostdc1-/- mice. Together, these data reveal 1) that a key role of Msx1 in driving tooth development through the bud-to-cap transition is to control the expression of Dkk2 and 2) that modulation of Wnt signaling activity by Dkk2 and Sostdc1 plays a crucial role in the Msx1-dependent odontogenic pathway during early tooth morphogenesis.

Cells-Micropatterning Biomaterials for Immune Activation and Bone Regeneration

Natural tissues are composed of ordered architectural organizations of multiple tissue cells. The spatial distribution of cells is crucial for directing cellular behavior and maintaining tissue homeostasis and function. Herein, an artificial bone bioceramic scaffold with star-, Tai Chi-, or interlacing-shaped multicellular patterns is constructed. The "cross-talk" between mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and macrophages can be effectively manipulated by altering the spatial distribution of two kinds of cells in the scaffolds, thus achieving controllable modulation of the scaffold-mediated osteo-immune responses. Compared with other multicellular patterns, the Tai Chi pattern with a 2:1 ratio of MSCs to macrophages is more effective in activating anti-inflammatory M2 macrophages, improving MSCs osteogenic differentiation, and accelerating new bone formation in vivo. In brief, the Tai Chi pattern generates a more favorable osteo-immune environment for bone regeneration, exhibiting enhanced immunomodulation and osteogenesis, which may be associated with the activation of BMP-Smad, Oncostatin M (OSM), and Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathways in MSCs mediated by macrophage-derived paracrine signaling mediators. The study suggests that the manipulation of cell distribution to improve tissue formation is a feasible approach that can offer new insights for the design of tissue-engineered bone substitutes with multicellular interactions.

Spindle-Like Zinc Silicate Nanoparticles Accelerating Innervated and Vascularized Skin Burn Wound Healing

The treatment of severe burn injuries is a crucial challenge in skin tissue engineering. Severe burns are always accompanied with large-area neurovascular networks damage, leading to the lack of excitation functions and difficulty in self-healing. Therefore, it is of great importance to develop biomaterials which can not only promote wound healing but also simultaneously reconstruct cutaneous neurovascular networks. In this study, Zn₂ SiO₄ (ZS) nanoparticles-incorporated bioactive nanofibrous scaffolds are designed for innervated and vascularized skin burn wound healing. ZS nanoparticles with spindle-like morphology are synthesized via a facile hydrothermal method. The incorporation of ZS nanoparticles endows the scaffolds with excellent angiogenic and neurogenic activities in vitro. Additionally, in vivo results show that the ZS nanoparticles-incorporated scaffolds have favorable re-epithelialization, innervation, and vascularization abilities through local release of bioactive Zn and Si ions from ZS nanoparticles, leading to rapid wound healing featuring with newly formed blood vessels and nerve fibers. Taken together, this study suggests that the spindle-like ZS nanoparticles are useful bioactive agents for stimulating vascularization and innervation of functional skin repair. The bioactive inorganic nanoparticles may be used for multifunctional tissue regeneration.

Surface Self-Assembly Construction of Therapeutic Contact Lens with Bacterial "Kill-Releasing" and Drug-Reloading Capabilities for Efficient Bacterial Keratitis Treatment

Bacterial keratitis, an ophthalmic emergency, can cause corneal perforation and even endophthalmitis, thus leading to severe visual impairment. To achieve effective treatment of bacterial keratitis, good bioavailability of antimicrobial drugs on the ocular surface is desired. In this investigation, a layer-by-layer (LBL) self-assembly combined with the host-guest recognition was used to construct an antibacterial coating on the surface of corneal contact lens (CLs) to improve drug bioavailability and achieve successful treatment of bacterial keratitis. First, a radical copolymerization of acrylic acid (AA) and 1-adamantan-1-ylmethyl acrylate (AdA) was carried out to synthesize a polyanionic copolymer P(AA-co-AdA) (defined as PAcA). Then, PAcA copolymer combined with poly(ethyleneimine) (PEI) was used for a layer-by-layer (LBL) self-assembly to fabricate multilayer films on the surface of CLs. An antibacterial conjugate, β-cyclodextrin-levofloxacin (β-CD-LEV), was successfully synthesized and utilized to generate antibacterial coating through a host-guest interaction between AdA and β-CD-LEV. The antibacterial ability and treatment effect of bacterial keratitis was evaluated by in vitro assay and in vivo test in an animal model of staphylococcal keratitis, demonstrating that the antibacterial coating had good antibacterial and germicidal efficacy both in vivo and in vitro. We believe that this work will provide a promising strategy for the treatment of bacterial keratitis.

The aquaculture supply chain in the time of covid-19 pandemic: Vulnerability, resilience, solutions and priorities at the global scale

The COVID-19 global pandemic has had severe, unpredictable and synchronous impacts on all levels of perishable food supply chains (PFSC), across multiple sectors and spatial scales. Aquaculture plays a vital and rapidly expanding role in food security, in some cases overtaking wild caught fisheries in the production of high-quality animal protein in this PFSC. We performed a rapid global assessment to evaluate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and related emerging control measures on the aquaculture supply chain. Socio-economic effects of the pandemic were analysed by surveying the perceptions of stakeholders, who were asked to describe potential supply-side disruption, vulnerabilities and resilience patterns along the production pipeline with four main supply chain components: a) hatchery, b) production/processing, c) distribution/logistics and d) market. We also assessed different farming strategies, comparing land- vs. sea-based systems; extensive vs. intensive methods; and with and without integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, IMTA. In addition to evaluating levels and sources of economic distress, interviewees were asked to identify mitigation solutions adopted at local / internal (i.e., farm-site) scales, and to express their preference on national / external scale mitigation measures among a set of a priori options. Survey responses identified the potential causes of disruption, ripple effects, sources of food insecurity, and socio-economic conflicts. They also pointed to various levels of mitigation strategies. The collated evidence represents a first baseline useful to address future disaster-driven responses, to reinforce the resilience of the sector and to facilitate the design reconstruction plans and mitigation measures, such as financial aid strategies.

[Causal relationship between physical exercise and risk of ischemic stroke recurrence based on the potential outcome theory]

OBJECTIVE

To explore the causal relationship between physical exercise and ischemic stroke recurrence using a multiple imputation approach based on the potential outcomes framework.

METHODS

We collected data from 636 patients who were diagnosed with first-ever ischemic stroke between July, 2010 and December, 2018 at West China Hospital, Sichuan University.All the patients had motor ability and were followed up at least for 1 year.According to the intensity of physical exercise, the patients were divided into low-level physical exercise (LPE) group (n=244) and moderate-to high-intensity exercise (MHPE) group (n=392).With both the result and the time of recurrence as the potential outcomes, a multiple imputation method was used to impute the missing values based on a predictive matrix.Based on the imputed datasets, a causal inference model was built to estimate the average causal effect of physical exercise on the risk of stroke recurrence.

RESULTS

Among the enrolled patients, 148 experienced recurrent stroke with a median recurrence time of 24.0 months and a cumulative recurrence rate of 23.3%during follow-up.As there were no outliers and the marginal distributions of the potential outcomes were basically consistent, both the Strip plots and Kenel density plots indicated that the imputed values could have been plausible measurements if they had not been missing.The average causal effect (ACE) of physical exercise on stroke recurrence was 0.578 (95%CI: 0.186-0.970, P=0.012).

CONCLUSION

There is a causal relationship between physical exercise and the risk of ischemic stroke recurrence, indicating the value of moderate or high-level exercise after stroke in reducing the risk of stroke recurrence.

3D-printed bioceramic scaffolds with Fe3S4microflowers for magnetothermal and chemodynamic therapy of bone tumor and regeneration of bone defects

Elimination of residual osteosarcoma cells and repair of bone defects remain major challenges for osteosarcoma in clinic. To address this problem, it is required that multifunctional therapeutic platform possess high tumor-killing efficiency and simultaneous bone regeneration capabilities. In this work, an intelligent therapeutic platform was developed to achieve highly-efficient tumor therapy and simultaneous significantly improved bone defect repairing ability, which was realized byin situgrowing ferromagnetic Fe₃S₄layers with tuned microstructures on the surface of 3D-printed akermanite bioceramic scaffolds via hydrothermal method. The Fe₃S₄layers exploited magnetic thermal energy to enhance chemodynamic treatment, thus achieving a synergistic effect between magnetothermal and chemodynamic therapy on the elimination of residual tumor cells. Moreover, the micro-structured surface of the 3D-printed bioceramic scaffolds further enhanced the osteogenic activityin vitroand accelerated the bone regenerationin vivo. The scaffolds with multi-mode tumor-killing and bone repairing capabilities indicated that such a therapeutic platform is applicable for a stepwise treatment strategy of osteosarcoma and provides inspiration for the design of multifunctional biomaterials.

3D Printing of Strontium Silicate Microcylinder-Containing Multicellular Biomaterial Inks for Vascularized Skin Regeneration

The reconstruction of dermal blood vessels is essential for skin regeneration process. However, the lack of vascular structure, insufficient angiogenesis induction, and ineffective graft-host anastomosis of the existing skin substitutes are major bottle-necks for permanent skin replacement in tissue engineering. In this study, the uniform strontium silicate (SS) microcylinders are successfully synthesized and integrated into the biomaterial ink to serve as stable cell-induced factors for angiogenesis, and then a functional skin substitute based on a vascularization-induced biomimetic multicellular system is prepared via a "cell-writing" bioprinting technology. With an unprecedented combination of vascularized skin-mimicking structure and vascularization-induced function, the SS-containing multicellular system exhibits outstanding angiogenic activity both in vitro and in vivo. As a result, the bioprinted skin substitutes significantly accelerate the healing of both acute and chronic wounds by promoting the graft-host integration and vascularized skin regeneration in three animal models. Therefore, the study provides a referable strategy to fabricate biomimetic multicellular constructs with angiogenesis-induced function for regeneration of vascularized complex and hierarchical tissues.

Complementary time-frequency domain networks for dynamic parallel MR image reconstruction

PURPOSE

To introduce a novel deep learning-based approach for fast and high-quality dynamic multicoil MR reconstruction by learning a complementary time-frequency domain network that exploits spatiotemporal correlations simultaneously from complementary domains.

THEORY AND METHODS

Dynamic parallel MR image reconstruction is formulated as a multivariable minimization problem, where the data are regularized in combined temporal Fourier and spatial (x-f) domain as well as in spatiotemporal image (x-t) domain. An iterative algorithm based on variable splitting technique is derived, which alternates among signal de-aliasing steps in x-f and x-t spaces, a closed-form point-wise data consistency step and a weighted coupling step. The iterative model is embedded into a deep recurrent neural network which learns to recover the image via exploiting spatiotemporal redundancies in complementary domains.

RESULTS

Experiments were performed on two datasets of highly undersampled multicoil short-axis cardiac cine MRI scans. Results demonstrate that our proposed method outperforms the current state-of-the-art approaches both quantitatively and qualitatively. The proposed model can also generalize well to data acquired from a different scanner and data with pathologies that were not seen in the training set.

CONCLUSION

The work shows the benefit of reconstructing dynamic parallel MRI in complementary time-frequency domains with deep neural networks. The method can effectively and robustly reconstruct high-quality images from highly undersampled dynamic multicoil data ( 16 × and 24 × yielding 15 s and 10 s scan times respectively) with fast reconstruction speed (2.8 seconds). This could potentially facilitate achieving fast single-breath-hold clinical 2D cardiac cine imaging.

Systematic evaluation of iterative deep neural networks for fast parallel MRI reconstruction with sensitivity-weighted coil combination

PURPOSE

To systematically investigate the influence of various data consistency layers and regularization networks with respect to variations in the training and test data domain, for sensitivity-encoded accelerated parallel MR image reconstruction.

THEORY AND METHODS

Magnetic resonance (MR) image reconstruction is formulated as a learned unrolled optimization scheme with a down-up network as regularization and varying data consistency layers. The proposed networks are compared to other state-of-the-art approaches on the publicly available fastMRI knee and neuro dataset and tested for stability across different training configurations regarding anatomy and number of training samples.

RESULTS

Data consistency layers and expressive regularization networks, such as the proposed down-up networks, form the cornerstone for robust MR image reconstruction. Physics-based reconstruction networks outperform post-processing methods substantially for R = 4 in all cases and for R = 8 when the training and test data are aligned. At R = 8, aligning training and test data is more important than architectural choices.

CONCLUSION

In this work, we study how dataset sizes affect single-anatomy and cross-anatomy training of neural networks for MRI reconstruction. The study provides insights into the robustness, properties, and acceleration limits of state-of-the-art networks, and our proposed down-up networks. These key insights provide essential aspects to successfully translate learning-based MRI reconstruction to clinical practice, where we are confronted with limited datasets and various imaged anatomies.

[Analysis of low-dose computed tomography compliance and related factors among high-risk population of lung cancer in three provinces participating in the cancer screening program in urban China]

Objective: To analyze the compliance and related factors of low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) screening among the high-risk population of lung cancer in three provinces participating in the cancer early diagnosis and early treatment program in urban areas of China. Methods: From October 2017 to October 2018, 17 983 people aged between 40 and 74 years old at high risk of lung cancer were recruited from Zhejiang, Anhui and Liaoning provinces. The basic demographic characteristics, living habits, history of the disease and family history of cancer were collected by using a cancer risk assessment questionnaire, and the data of participants examined by LDCT were obtained from the hospitals participating in the program. The screening compliance was quantified by the screening participation rate, and it was calculated as the proportion of participants completing LDCT scan among high-risk population. The related factors of LDCT screening compliance were analyzed by using a multivariate logistic regression model. Results: The age of 17 983 participants was (56.52±8.22) years old. Males accounted for 51.9% (N=9 332), and 69.5% (N=12 495) had ever smoked, including former smokers and current smokers. A total of 6 269 participants were screened by LDCT, and the screening participation rate was 34.86%. The results of multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the age group of 50 to 69 years old, female, passive smokers, alcohol consumption, family history of lung cancer and history of chronic respiratory diseases were more likely to be screened by LDCT, while the compliance of LDCT screening in current smokers was low. Conclusions: The LDCT screening compliance of the high-risk population of lung cancer in urban areas of China still needs to be improved. Age, sex, smoking, drinking, family history of lung cancer and history of chronic respiratory disease are associated with screening compliance.

Enhanced PCO prevention of drug eluting IOLs via endocytosis and autophagy effects of a PAMAM dendrimer

Drug-loaded intraocular lenses (IOLs) have received considerable attention in treating complications that arise after cataract surgery, especially posterior capsular opacification (PCO). However, for a better therapeutic effect, the drug concentration in IOLs usually needs to be increased. Herein, we developed multilayer (doxorubicin (DOX)@polyaminoamide (PAMAM) (D@P)/heparin sodium (HEP))5 modified IOLs, which efficiently enhance the inhibitory effect on PCO using the enhanced autophagy effect of a cationic PAMAM. The chemotherapeutic drug DOX was encapsulated in PAMAM to formulate cationic DOX@PAMAM nanoparticles. Subsequently, negatively charged HEP and D@P nanoparticles (NPs) were assembled on the aminated artificial IOL surface using the layer-by-layer (LBL) assembly technique. The (D@P/HEP)5 IOLs were implanted into rabbit eyes to evaluate the prevention of PCO. In vitro and in vivo research studies showed that the D@P NPs exhibited enhanced cellular uptake owing to the cell-penetrating cationic characteristics, while demonstrating enhanced autophagy. D@P NPs are more effective at the same DOX concentration when compared to free DOX. Multilayer-modified (D@P/HEP)5 IOLs can efficiently inhibit PCO after cataract surgery. This study provides a strategy for improving the therapeutic effect of antiproliferative drug DOX by using a cationic dendrimer, which, in turn, increases the level of autophagy of cells. These LBL-based multilayer IOLs have broad application prospects in the treatment of complications after cataract surgery.

Totally endoscopic sublay (TES) repair for lateral abdominal wall hernias: technique and first results

BACKGROUND

The optimal surgical treatment for lateral hernias of the abdominal wall remains unclear. The presented prospective study assesses for the first time in detail the clinical value of a totally endoscopic sublay (TES) technique for the repair of these hernias.

METHODS

Twenty-four consecutive patients with a lateral abdominal wall hernia underwent TES repair. This technique is naturally combined with a transversus abdominis release maneuver to create a sufficient retromuscular/preperitoneal space that can accommodate, if necessary, a giant prosthetic mesh.

RESULTS

The operations were successful in all but one patient who required open conversion because of dense intestinal adhesion. The mean defect width was 6.7 ± 3.9 cm. The mean defect area was 78.0 ± 102.4 cm² (range 4-500 cm²). The mean mesh size used was 330.2 ± 165.4 cm² (range 108-900 cm²). The mean operative time was 170.2 ± 73.8 min (range, 60-360 min). The mean visual analog scale score for pain at rest on the first day was 2.5 (range 1-4). The average postoperative stay was 3.4 days (range 2-7 days). No serious complications (Dindo-Clavien Grade 2-4) were seen within a mean follow-up period of 13.3 months.

CONCLUSIONS

A totally endoscopic technique (TES) for the treatment of lateral hernias is described. The technique revealed to be reliable, safe and cost-effective. The first results are promising, but larger studies with longer follow-up periods are recommended to determine the real clinical value.