A bioenergy-focused versus a reforestation-focused mitigation pathway yields disparate carbon storage and climate responses.

Limiting global warming to 2 °C requires urgent action on land-based mitigation. This study evaluates the biogeochemical and biogeophysical implications of two alternative land-based mitigation scenarios that aim to achieve the same radiative forcing. One scenario is primarily driven by bioenergy expansion (SSP226Lu-BIOCROP), while the other involves re/afforestation (SSP126Lu-REFOREST). We find that overall, SSP126Lu-REFOREST is a more efficient strategy for removing CO2 from the atmosphere by 2100, resulting in a net carbon sink of 242 ~ 483 PgC with smaller uncertainties compared to SSP226Lu-BIOCROP, which exhibits a wider range of -78 ~ 621 PgC. However, SSP126Lu-REFOREST leads to a relatively warmer planetary climate than SSP226Lu-BIOCROP, and this relative warming can be intensified in certain re/afforested regions where local climates are not favorable for tree growth. Despite the cooling effect on a global scale, SSP226Lu-BIOCROP reshuffles regional warming hotspots, amplifying summer temperatures in vulnerable tropical regions such as Central Africa and Southeast Asia. Our findings highlight the need for strategic land use planning to identify suitable regions for re/afforestation and bioenergy expansion, thereby improving the likelihood of achieving the intended climate mitigation outcomes.

Atmospheric forcing dominates winter Barents-Kara sea ice variability on interannual to decadal time scales.

The last two decades have seen a dramatic decline and strong year-to-year variability in Arctic winter sea ice, especially in the Barents-Kara Sea (BKS), changes that have been linked to extreme midlatitude weather and climate. It has been suggested that these changes in winter sea ice arise largely from a combined effect of oceanic and atmospheric processes, but the relative importance of these processes is not well established. Here, we explore the role of atmospheric circulation patterns on BKS winter sea ice variability and trends using observations and climate model simulations. We find that BKS winter sea ice variability is primarily driven by a strong anticyclonic anomaly over the region, which explains more than 50% of the interannual variability in BKS sea-ice concentration (SIC). Recent intensification of the anticyclonic anomaly has warmed and moistened the lower atmosphere in the BKS by poleward transport of moist-static energy and local processes, resulting in an increase in downwelling longwave radiation. Our results demonstrate that the observed BKS winter sea-ice variability is primarily driven by atmospheric, rather than oceanic, processes and suggest a persistent role of atmospheric forcing in future Arctic winter sea ice loss.

Factors associated with severe corneal endothelial damage following acute primary angle closure in Chinese subjects.

PURPOSE: To investigate the corneal endothelial damage caused by acute primary angle closure (APAC) and related risk factors for severe corneal endothelial cell damage in Chinese subjects. METHODS: In this multicentre retrospective study, 160 Chinese patients (171 eyes) diagnosed with APAC were recruited. Endothelial cell density (ECD) and morphological changes short after APAC were studied. Univariate regression and multivariate regression were used to identify risk factors associated with the extent of ECD reduction, including age, gender, education level, patients' location, systemic diseases, APAC duration (hours), highest recorded intraocular pressure (IOP), and presenting IOP. Factors associated with the probability of severe corneal damage (ECD lower than 1000/mm2) were analysed based on a linear function. RESULTS: After one APAC episode, 12.28% eyes had ECD lower than 1000/mm2, 30.41% had ECD between 1000 and 2000/mm2, and 57.31% had ECD more than 2000/mm2. Attack duration was the only factor associated with severe endothelial damage (p < 0.0001). If the attack were to be subsided within 15.0 h, possibility of ECD lower than 1000/mm2 could be controlled under 1%. CONCLUSION: Shortly after the abortion of APAC, 12.28% patients experienced severe endothelial cell damage with ECD less than 1000/mm2. The only factor associated with severe ECD decrease was attack duration. Immediate and effective treatment is pivotal for preserving corneal endothelial function in APAC patients.

Large-scale reforestation can increase water yield and reduce drought risk for water-insecure regions in the Asia-Pacific.

Large-scale reforestation can potentially bring both benefits and risks to the water cycle, which needs to be better quantified under future climates to inform reforestation decisions. We identified 477 water-insecure basins worldwide accounting for 44.6% (380.2 Mha) of the global reforestation potential. As many of these basins are in the Asia-Pacific, we used regional coupled land-climate modeling for the period 2041-2070 to reveal that reforestation increases evapotranspiration and precipitation for most water-insecure regions over the Asia-Pacific. This resulted in a statistically significant increase in water yield (p < .05) for the Loess Plateau-North China Plain, Yangtze Plain, Southeast China, and Irrawaddy regions. Precipitation feedback was influenced by the degree of initial moisture limitation affecting soil moisture response and thus evapotranspiration, as well as precipitation advection from other reforested regions and moisture transport away from the local region. Reforestation also reduces the probability of extremely dry months in most of the water-insecure regions. However, some regions experience nonsignificant declines in net water yield due to heightened evapotranspiration outstripping increases in precipitation, or declines in soil moisture and advected precipitation.

An in vitro and ex vivo wound infection model to test topical and systemic treatment with antibiotics.

AIMS: This study aimed to develop a wound infection model that could be used to test antibiotic-loaded electrospun matrices for the topical treatment of infected skin and compare the effectiveness of this treatment to systemically applied antibiotics. METHODS AND RESULTS: 3D-printed flow chambers were made in which Staphylococcus aureus biofilms were grown either on a polycarbonate membrane or explanted porcine skin. The biofilms were then treated either topically, by placing antibiotic-loaded electrospun matrices on top of the biofilms, or systemically by the addition of antibiotics in the growth medium that flowed underneath the membrane or skin. The medium that was used was either a rich medium or an artificial wound fluid. The results showed that microbial viability in the biofilms was reduced to a greater extent with the topical electrospun matrices when compared to systemic treatment. CONCLUSIONS: An ex vivo infection model was developed that is flexible and can be used to test both topical and systemic treatment of wound infections. It represents a significant improvement over previous in vitro models that we have used to test electrospun membranes. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY: The availability of a relatively simple wound infection model in which different delivery methods and dosage regimes can be tested is beneficial for the development of improved treatments for wound infections.

Numerical study on the effect of bifurcation vessel parameters on microwave ablation of lung tissue.

Background: In order to study the effect of bifurcation vessels parameters on the temperature field and coagulation zone of microwave ablation on lung tissue. Methods: The finite element method was used to establish the simulation model. The angle of bifurcation vessel model was 60°. The position of the antenna and the main blood vessel are parallel, and the distance between them was 5, 10 and 15 mm, respectively. Temperature field distribution was obtained at 2450 MHz, 50 W and 300 s. The blood flow velocity was set to 0.1 and 0.2 m/s. Results: The results showed when the antenna was 5 mm away from the bifurcation vessel and the velocity was 0.1 m/s, the position of x = 8.4 mm achieved the complete necrosis at 220 s, while the fraction of necrotic tissue at the symmetry point x = 1.6 mm was 0.2 at 300 s. For the distance was 10 mm and the velocity was 0.1 m/s, the fraction of necrotic tissue at x = 3 mm that near the bifurcation vessel was 0.53 and was 0.69 at the symmetry point x = 17 mm. When the antenna is 15 mm away from the vessel, the fraction of necrotic tissue of symmetrical points on both sides of the antenna obtained after ablation were the same. Conclusions: The distance between the antenna and the bifurcation vessel over 15 mm, the blood flow has no effect on the coagulation zone. Besides, the distance between bifurcation vessel and antenna possesses a greater influence on the temperature distribution and coagulation zone than the blood flow velocity.

Sodium-Glucose Cotransporter-2 Inhibitors in Vascular Biology: Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms.

Sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors are new antidiabetic drugs that reduce hyperglycemia by inhibiting the glucose reabsorption in renal proximal tubules. Clinical studies have shown that SGLT2 inhibitors not only improve glycemic control but also reduce major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE, cardiovascular and total mortality, fatal or nonfatal myocardial infarction or stroke) and hospitalization for heart failure (HF), and improve outcome in chronic kidney disease. These cardiovascular and renal benefits have now been confirmed in both diabetes and non-diabetes patients. The precise mechanism(s) responsible for the protective effects are under intensive investigation. This review examines current evidence on the cardiovascular benefits of SGLT2 inhibitors, with a special emphasis on the vascular actions and their potential mechanisms.

ESIPT fluorophores derived from 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-p-benzoquinone based carbon dots for dual emission and multiple anti-counterfeiting.

Fluorophores and hydrogen bonding interactions play key roles in the fluorescence properties of bottom-up carbon dots. In this work, an excited-state intramolecular proton-transfer (ESIPT) active fluorophore, 5-chloro-6-ethoxy-4,7-dihydroxyisoindoline-1,3-dione (CEDD) and a non-ESIPT 7-cyano-5,8-dihydroxyquinoxaline-6-carboxamide (CDQC) are extracted from 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-p-benzoquinone (DDQ) based carbon dots. The enol form of CEDD shows a weak blue, small Stokes shift and short lifetime emission under the aprotic or alkali conditions, but the keto form exhibits a strong green, large Stokes shift and long lifetime emission in a protic or an acidic environment. Due to the lack of the ESIPT process, CDQC has no dual emission characteristics, but shows efficient solid-state emission. By virtue of the ESIPT ability of CEDD, multiple anti-counterfeiting methods are achieved by using hydrogen chloride, ammonia, and fluorescence lifetime imaging, as well as dimethyl sulfoxide as the encryption/decryption tools.

Comparison of ablation characteristics of three different radiofrequency applicators in renal sympathetic denervation.

OBJECTIVE: Renal sympathetic denervation (RDN) is an alternative treatment for resistant hypertension (RH). This study aims to compare ablation effects using three radiofrequency applicators (i.e., balloon-based four electrodes, spiral and monopolar devices). METHODS: An idealized three-dimensional model of the renal artery was established using COMSOL Multiphysics to mimic radiofrequency ablation (RFA). Radiofrequency (RF) energy was delivered to the tissue at the same simulation settings, i.e., 4, 6, and 8 W for 60 s, using the three abovementioned RF applicators. The temperature distribution in the tissue was calculated using the coupled electrical-thermal-fluid finite element method. Lesion borders were defined using 50 °C isotherms. The maximum lesion depth, width, area, and circumferential coverage rate were compared among the three applicators at a blood flow of 0.4 m/s. Monopolar RF ablations in a renal artery phantom model were performed to validate the reliability of the simulation method. RESULTS: The balloon-based system yields greater lesion depths and widths compared with spiral and monopolar denervation under the same power. The range of maximum lesion depth is 1.58-3.11 mm for balloon-based RDN, 0.90-1.81 mm for spiral RDN and 1.12-2.38 mm for monopolar RDN, at a power of 4-8 W. The corresponding ranges of maximum lesion width are 2.22-5.73, 1.48-3.54, and 1.93-5.31 mm, respectively, and the circumferential coverage rates of the renal artery are 41.43%-91.99%, 31.71%-66.23%, and 9.55%-23.06%, respectively. The average velocity after balloon-based, spiral, and monopolar RDN increases by 3, 5, and 1 cm/s, respectively. The validation of the computer model offered prediction errors are <5% in terms of temperature at different locations (i.e., 2, 4, and 8 mm). CONCLUSIONS: In terms of lesion size, balloon-based RDN appears to be the best option for the treatment of RH. However, the change in flow velocity in the arterial flow field suggests that its hemodynamic changes must be prioritized for investigating its safety. Although spiral catheter ablation yields the smallest lesion size and a significant change in flow velocity in the flow field, its coverage rate is larger than that of monopolar RDN; compared with balloon-based RDN, it did not obstruct most of the blood flow.

Evaluating the thermal performance of a balloon-based renal sympathetic denervation system with array electrodes: a finite element study.

Renal denervation transmits radiofrequency (RF) energy through an electrode to treat resistant hypertension (RH), applying ablation in the renal artery. Several experimental studies have shown that this treatment has been used effectively to treat RH. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of ablation parameters (i.e., electrode length, applied voltage, ablation time, and blood flow) on the temperature distribution using a balloon-based array electrodes system. A simplified three-dimensional model including four electrodes and a balloon was established. The balloon diameter was 3 mm and placed in a 5 mm diameter renal artery for forming intra-arterial occlusion. Four electrodes were mounted on the balloon and distributed in the same plane to mimic circumferential RF ablation. Computer simulations were conducted to investigate the thermal performances of the device by setting different electrode configurations, treatment protocols, and physiological factors. The thermal performances including the thermal distribution, maximum lesion depth, length, and area were analyzed. The lesion shape of the array RF electrodes was approximately a sphere with a 100% circumference coverage rate of the renal artery. The lesion depth and length increase with each factor except for blood velocity. Increasing the electrode length from 2 to 4 mm or 2 to 6 mm, the lesion depth increases by 1.15 mm and 0.54 mm at 60 s. The corresponding lesion length increases by 2.65 mm and 2.34 mm, respectively. The range of effective lesion depth is 1.90-4.90 mm, at a voltage of 15-30 V. But the peak temperature at the arterial outer wall exceeded 100 °C when the voltage is above 25 V. In tissue, the degree of thermal injury in the 2 mm area reached 100%, but in blood was not more than 5%. There was no significant difference at different flow conditions because the difference value in lesion depth was not exceeded 0.5 mm. The results showed that the balloon-based four electrodes system is expected to overcome the difficulty of incomplete ablation. In clinical application, 2 mm-electrode is recommended to avoid long wall damage as much as possible and control the voltage below 25 V. This treatment has little thermal injury on the blood, which means it may avoid coagulation formation. Moreover, the application of this device does not need to consider the difference in individual blood velocity.

[Experimental study on temperature dependence of dielectric properties of biological tissues at 2 450 MHz].

The temperature dependence of relative permittivity and conductivity of ex-vivo pig liver, lung and heart at 2 450 MHz was studied. The relative permittivity and conductivity of three kinds of biological tissues were measured by the open-end coaxial line method. The dielectric model was fitted according to the principle of least square method. The results showed that the relative permittivity and conductivity of pig liver, pig lung and pig heart decreased with the increase of tissue temperature from 20 to 80 ℃. The relative permittivity and conductivity models of pig liver, pig lung and pig heart were established to reflect the law of dielectric properties of biological tissue changing with temperature and provide a reference for the parameters setting of thermal ablation temperature field.

[Application of hyperbolic heat transfer model in atrial fibrillation microwave ablation].

The effect of relaxation time in hyperbolic heat transfer model on the temperature field of microwave ablation of atrial fibrillation was investigated. And the results were compared with those calculated by Pennes model. A three-dimensional model of microwave ablation of atrial fibrillation was constructed. The relaxation time ( τ) was 0, 1, 5, 8, 10, 15 and 20 s, respectively. And the temperature field of myocardial tissue was obtained. The results showed that the highest temperature of the hyperbolic model was 21.8 ℃ lower than that of the Pennes model at the beginning of ablation. With the increase of ablation time, the highest temperature tended to be the same. The lesion dimensions appeared at 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 s, respectively after ablation. Therefore, the influence of hyperbolic model on temperature will decrease with the increase of the ablation time. At the beginning of ablation, the relaxation time will hinder the speed of myocardial thermal diffusion. The larger the relaxation time is, the slower the speed of thermal diffusion is. This study provides a reference for the application of hyperbolic model in microwave ablation of atrial fibrillation.

Numerical simulation of electromagnetic heating process of biological tissue via time-fractional Cattaneo transfer equation.

In order to simulate the heat transfer in the process of hyperthermia, one-dimensional time-fractional Cattaneo heat transfer equation (TFHE) is established. Based on TFHE, the heat transfer model is solved by using finite difference method, because a single layer of biological tissue in vitro is irradiated by electromagnetic energy. The effect of power parameters (energy flux density P0, tissue attenuation coefficient h) and equation parameters (relaxation time τq and fractional order ß) on the prediction of temperature simulated by TFHE were studied. Furthermore, comparative studies on TFHE, Pennes and CV are performed and evaluated. In the heating process, because of the existence of relaxation time τq, the temperature response of TFHE and CV are later than Pennes, leading to the lower temperature prediction of TFHE and CV than that of Pennes. The shorter the time is, the higher the energy is, and the more obvious the difference is.

Flow field study of radiofrequency ablation of renal sympathetic nerve: Numerical simulation and PIV experiments.

Renal sympathetic denervation (RSD) is a new method for the treatment of resistant hypertension (RH). However, few studies have focused on the effects of RSD on blood flow and the interaction between temperature field and flow field. In this paper, firstly, we designed a numerical simulation of electromagnetic field, flow field and temperature field coupling by finite element method. Secondly, numerical simulation results were verified by particle image velocimetry (PIV) and vitro experiment. From the simulation results, when the flow velocity increases to 0.05 m/s, the turbulence near the electrode disappeared and flow state became uniform laminar flow. With the increases of flow velocity (0 m/s to 0.1 m/s), temperature rise of the renal artery, the electrode tip and blood decreased from 13°C, 24°C and 5.4°C to 9.3°C, 9.7°C and 0.2°C, respectively. From PIV experiment and vitro experiment results, when the flow rate increases to 0.5 L/min, it appeared similar phenomenon with the velocity of 0.05 m/s in simulation. With the increases of flow rate (0 L/min to 0.8 L/min), temperature rise of three points decreased from 11.2°C, 20.5°C and 3.6°C to 7.8°C, 8.5°C, and 0.4°C, respectively. When the blood flow rate exceeds 0.5 L/min, there is no large velocity gradient and reflux area in the flow field, so there will be no hemolysis and thrombosis. Therefore, the temperature field has less influence on the flow field. With the increase of flow rate, the temperature at all three points decreases. Therefore, the flow field has an effect on the temperature field. But the central temperature of renal artery can still reach the treatment target in which temperature rises to be more than 6°C. Therefore, this study preliminarily verified the safety and effectiveness of RSD.

Experimental and numerical study of microwave ablation on ex-vivo porcine lung.

Microwave ablation is used to treat lung tumors by releasing microwave magnetic field to produce high temperature of more than 60 ℃ in the tumor tissues, thus causing tissue coagulation, dehydration and necrosis to achieve the purpose of treatment. However, the lack of appropriate power and time parameters for microwave ablation in clinical treatment of lung tumors leads to poor ablation or excessive ablation. In this paper, a two-dimensional simulation model of microwave antenna and ideal lung was established to realize the simulation of microwave ablation process. Meanwhile, microwave ablation experiments were carried out in ex-vivo porcine lung under different power and time. The temperature distribution was obtained by thermocouples and compared with the simulation calculation. Set 60℃ as boundary of the ablation area and the ablation time was 360 s. The length of the ablation area parallel to the antenna direction is longitudinal, and the length perpendicular to the antenna direction is transverse. From the simulation results, with the increase of ablation power (20 W to 60 W), the transverse diameter of ablation area increased from 32.5 mm to 55.6 mm, and the longitudinal diameter increased from 47.8 mm to 69.1 mm. From the results of ex-vivo experiments, with the increase of ablation power (30 W to 50 W), the transverse diameter of ablation area increased from 29.5 mm to 48.9 mm, the longitudinal diameter increased from 41.1 mm to 66.3 mm, and the maximum slot temperature increased from 75.6 ℃ to 106.7 ℃. The results of numerical simulation are slightly larger than those of ex-vivo experiments under the same parameters. When the average diameter of lung tumors is less than 40 mm, 30 W and 40 W ablation power can be selected. The ablation time is limited to 360 s. 50 W ablation power can be used to ablate the lesion quickly in a shorter time to achieve the same purpose. Although there are differences between ex-vivo and in vivo, the validity of the lung model and the influence of ablation parameters in the simulation are verified in this paper. The ablation area under different parameters was obtained, which served as a reference data for clinical practice. A basic study was made to consider the complex lung model and the changes of parameters with temperature in the future.

Occurrence of tetracycline-resistant fecal coliforms and their resistance genes in an urban river impacted by municipal wastewater treatment plant discharges.

Antibiotic resistance of fecal coliforms in an urban river poses great threats to both human health and the environment. To investigate the occurrence and distribution of antibiotic resistant bacteria in an urban river, water samples were collected from the Chanhe River in Xi'an, China. After membrane filtration of water samples, the tetracycline resistance rate of fecal coliforms and their resistance genes were detected by plating and polymerase chain reaction (PCR), respectively. We found that fecal coliforms were generally resistant to tetracycline and saw average resistance rates of 44.7%. The genes tetA and tetB were widely detected, and their positive rate was 60%-100% and 40%-90%, respectively. We found few strains containing tetC, tetK, tetQ and tetX, and we did not identify any strains containing tetG, tetM or tetO. The prevalence of tetA and tetB over other genes indicated that the main mechanism for resistance to tetracycline is by changes to the efflux pump. Our analysis of the types and proportion of tetracycline resistance genes in the Chanhe River at locations upstream and downstream of the urban center suggests that the increased number of tetracycline-resistant fecal coliforms and spatial variation of tetracycline resistance genes diversity were related to municipal wastewater treatment plant discharge.

Identifying radiogenomic associations of breast cancer based on DCE-MRI by using Siamese Neural Network with manufacturer bias normalization.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The immunohistochemical test (IHC) for Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2 (HER2) and hormone receptors (HR) provides prognostic information and guides treatment for patients with invasive breast cancer. The objective of this paper is to establish a non-invasive system for identifying HER2 and HR in breast cancer using dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI). METHODS: In light of the absence of high-performance algorithms and external validation in previously published methods, this study utilizes 3D deep features and radiomics features to represent the information of the Region of Interest (ROI). A Siamese Neural Network was employed as the classifier, with 3D deep features and radiomics features serving as the network input. To neutralize manufacturer bias, a batch effect normalization method, ComBat, was introduced. To enhance the reliability of the study, two datasets, Predict Your Therapeutic Response with Imaging and moLecular Analysis (I-SPY 1) and I-SPY 2, were incorporated. I-SPY 2 was utilized for model training and validation, while I-SPY 1 was exclusively employed for external validation. Additionally, a breast tumor segmentation network was trained to improve radiomic feature extraction. RESULTS: The results indicate that our approach achieved an average Area Under the Curve (AUC) of 0.632, with a Standard Error of the Mean (SEM) of 0.042 for HER2 prediction in the I-SPY 2 dataset. For HR prediction, our method attained an AUC of 0.635 (SEM 0.041), surpassing other published methods in the AUC metric. Moreover, the proposed method yielded competitive results in other metrics. In external validation using the I-SPY 1 dataset, our approach achieved an AUC of 0.567 (SEM 0.032) for HR prediction and 0.563 (SEM 0.033) for HER2 prediction. CONCLUSION: This study proposes a non-invasive system for identifying HER2 and HR in breast cancer. Although the results do not conclusively demonstrate superiority in both tasks, they indicate that the proposed method achieved good performance and is a competitive classifier compared to other reference methods. Ablation studies demonstrate that both radiomics features and deep features for the Siamese Neural Network are beneficial for the model. The introduced manufacturer bias normalization method has been shown to enhance the method's performance. Furthermore, the external validation of the method enhances the reliability of this research. Source code, pre-trained segmentation network, Radiomics and deep features, data for statistical analysis, and Supporting Information of this article are online at: https://github.com/FORRESTHUACHEN/Siamese_Neural_Network_based_Brest_cancer_Radiogenomic.

S-nitrosylation attenuates pregnane X receptor hyperactivity and acetaminophen-induced liver injury.

Drug-induced liver injury (DILI), especially acetaminophen overdose, is the leading cause of acute liver failure. Pregnane X receptor (PXR) is a nuclear receptor and the master regulator of drug metabolism. Aberrant activation of PXR plays a pathogenic role in the acetaminophen hepatotoxicity. Here, we aimed to examine the S-nitrosylation of PXR (SNO-PXR) in response to acetaminophen. We found that PXR was S-nitrosylated in hepatocytes and the mouse livers after exposure to acetaminophen or S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO). Mass spectrometry and site-directed mutagenesis identified the cysteine 307 as the primary residue for S-nitrosylation (SNO) modification. In hepatocytes, SNO suppressed both agonist-induced (rifampicin and SR12813) and constitutively active PXR (VP-PXR, a human PXR fused to the minimal transactivator domain of the herpes virus transcription factor VP16) activations. Furthermore, in acetaminophen-overdosed mouse livers, PXR protein was decreased at the centrilobular regions overlapping with increased SNO. In PXR-/- mice, replenishing the livers with the SNO-deficient PXR significantly aggravated hepatic necrosis, increased HMGB1 release, and exacerbated liver injury and inflammation. Particularly, we demonstrated that S-nitrosoglutathione reductase (GSNOR) inhibitor N6022 promoted hepatoprotection by increasing the levels of SNO-PXR. In conclusion, PXR is posttranslationally modified by SNO in hepatocytes in response to acetaminophen. This modification mitigated the acetaminophen-induced PXR hyperactivity. It may serve as a target for therapeutical intervention.

Genetic Polymorphism of NQO1 Influences Susceptibility to Coronary Heart Disease in a Chinese Population: A Cross-Sectional Study and Meta-Anaylsis.

Objective: The present study is to explore the association between NQO1 gene polymorphism and coronary heart disease (CHD) risk. Methods: This research were selected 80 CHD patients as the observation group and 130 healthy people who participated in normal physical examination during the same period as the control group. NQO1 gene polymorphism was detected by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method. In addition, we conducted a meta-analysis to summarize the results of three relevant previously published adult population studies on the association between NQO1 gene polymorphism and coronary heart disease (CHD) risk. Results: There were three genotypes (CC, CT, and TT) for NQO1 C609T polymorphism. The significant associations were found in TT genotype and T allele (all p<0.05). Specifically, People with the TT genotype have 2.06 times CHD risk as those with the CC genotype. And People with the T allele have 1.62 times CHD risk as those with the C allele. No significant association was found by any genetic models in the meta-analysis (all p >0.05). Conclusion: NQO1 gene polymorphism increased the CHD risk in a Chinese population. Combined with individual gene polymorphism, the accuracy of risk assessment for CHD can be improved and individualized health education can be provided for CHD patients by nurses.

Variation in Retinal Nerve Fiber Layer and Ganglion Cell Complex Associated With Optic Nerve Head Size in Healthy Eyes.

Purpose: To investigate whether the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) and ganglion cell complex (GCC) change with optic nerve head (ONH) size in healthy eyes. Methods: This cross-sectional observational study recruited participants aged ≥50 years. Participants underwent optical coherence tomography-assisted measurements of the peripapillary RNFL and macular GCC and were divided into small, medium, and large ONH groups according to optic disc area (≤1.9 mm2, >1.9 mm2 and ≤2.4 mm2, and >2.4 mm2, respectively). The groups were compared for RNFL and GCC. Linear regression models were used to evaluate the correlation of RNFL and GCC with ocular and systemic factors. Results: There were 366 participants. The whole, temporal, and superior RNFLs were significantly different among the groups (P = 0.035, 0.034, and 0.013, respectively) with no significant difference in the nasal and inferior RNFL (P = 0.214, 0.267, respectively). The average, superior, and inferior GCCs were not significantly different among the groups (P = 0.583, 0.467, and 0.820, respectively). Thinner RNFL was independently associated with older age (P = 0.003), male sex (P = 0.018), smaller disc area (P < 0.001), higher vertical cup disc ratio (VCDR) (P < 0.001), and larger maximum cup depth (P = 0.007); thinner GCC was independently associated with older age (P = 0.018), larger best-corrected visual acuity (P = 0.023), and higher VCDR (P = 0.002). Conclusions: RNFL but not GCC significantly increased with ONH size in healthy eyes. GCC may be more suitable than RNFL for evaluating early glaucoma in patients with large or small ONH. Translational Relevance: GCC may be a better index than RNFL for early glaucoma evaluation in patients with large or small ONH.