Development and Validation of a Comprehensive Analysis of the Competing Endogenous circRNA/miRNA/mRNA Network for the Identification of Immune-Related Targets in Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

Immunotherapy for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) exhibits notable variability in efficacy. Concurrently, recent research emphasizes circRNAs' impact on the ESCC tumor microenvironment. To further explore the relationship, we leveraged circRNA, microRNA, and mRNA sequence datasets to construct a comprehensive immune-related circRNA-microRNA-mRNA network, revealing competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) roles in ESCC. The network comprises 16 circular RNAs, 13 microRNAs, and 1,560 mRNAs. Weighted gene co-expression analysis identified immune-related modules, notably cancer-associated fibroblast (CAF) and myeloid-derived suppressor cell modules, correlating significantly with immune and stemness scores. Among them, the CAF module plays a crucial role in extracellular matrix function and effectively discriminates ESCC patients. Four hub collagen family genes within CAF correlated robustly with CAF, macrophage infiltration, and T-cell exclusion. In-house sequencing and RT-qPCR validated their elevated expression. We also identified CAF module-targeting drugs as potential ESCC treatments. In summary, we established an immune-related circRNA-miRNA-mRNA network that not only illuminates ceRNA functionality but also highlights circRNAs' involvement in the CAF through collagen gene targeting. These findings hold promise to predict ESCC immune landscapes and therapy responses, ultimately aiding in more personalized and effective clinical decision-making.

Four new phenolic constituents from root barks of Paeonia ostii.

The Paeonia ostii, also known as "Feng Dan" have a crucial role in folk medicine to treat lumbar muscles strain, knee osteoarthritis and cervical spondylosis. In this study, four new phenolic compounds, specifically Paeoniaostiph A-E (1-4) phenolic compounds were characterised through spectroscopic techniques, including 1D and 2D NMR, HRESIMS, UV, IR, and electronic circular dichroism computations to explore their structures. Cytotoxicity and NO production inhibition of the new phenolic compounds were also studied. The results of the cytotoxicity experiment showed that compound 1 is cytotoxic to two human cancer cell lines with IC50 values ranging from 13.3 to 13.5 µM. Compounds 1 and 2 showed certain inhibitory activity on NO production. This is the first report on isolating the components from natural sources.

A new pregnane glycoside from Marsdenia tenacissima and its cytotoxic and NO inhibitory activities.

The Marsdenia tenacissima, has been used as traditional Chinese medicine for six hundred years. Our chemical investigation on the stem of Marsdenia tenacissima led to the isolation of one new pregnane glycoside, namely, marsdeoside J (compound 1) and twelve known compounds. The structure of the new compound was elucidated by spectroscopic analysis including 1D and 2D NMR, HRESIMS, IR, and UV. The absolute configurations of the sugar moiety were identified by comparing the specific optical rotations and Rf values with those of the commercially available standards and the data reported in the literature. Compound 1 showed cytotoxicities against five human cancer cell lines, with IC50 values ranging from 6.5 to 18.1 µM and certain inhibitory activities on NO production.

Self-expandable metallic stents may be more efficient than balloon dilatation alone for esophageal stricture after circumferential endoscopic submucosal dissection: a retrospective cohort study in China.

INTRODUCTION: Self-expandable metallic stents (SEMSs) can be used to treat esophageal stricture after circumferential endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD), but its efficacy and placement timing remain to be determined. In this study, the treatment time and number of dilatations were compared between the SEMS placement group and the balloon dilatation (BD) group to clarify the efficacy and placement time of SEMSs in the treatment of esophageal stricture after circumferential esophageal ESD. METHODS: This was a retrospective cohort study. Patients with esophageal stricture after circumferential ESD between January 2015 and January 2020 were included. Data on the patients' demographic characteristics, esophageal lesion-related factors, esophageal stricture occurrence, and measures taken to treat the stricture were collected. The primary outcome was the treatment time, and the secondary outcome was the number of dilatations. RESULTS: The total number of dilatations was 30 in the SEMS group and 106 in the BD group. The average number of dilatations in the SEMS group (1.76 ± 1.64) was significantly lower than that in the BD group (4.42 ± 5.32) (P = 0.016). Among the patients who underwent SEMS placement first had a shorter treatment time (average 119 days) than those who underwent BD first (average 245 days) (P = 0.041), and the average number of dilatations inpatients who underwent SEMS placement first (0.71 ± 1.07) was significantly lower than that in the patients who underwent BD first (2.5 ± 1.54). CONCLUSION: SEMSs were more efficient in the treatment of esophageal stricture in a cohort of patients after circumferential esophageal ESD.

Transcription factor CaHDZ15 promotes pepper basal thermotolerance by activating HEAT SHOCK FACTORA6a.

High temperature stress (HTS) is a serious threat to plant growth and development and to crop production in the context of global warming, and plant response to HTS is largely regulated at the transcriptional level by the actions of various transcription factors (TFs). However, whether and how homeodomain-leucine zipper (HD-Zip) TFs are involved in thermotolerance are unclear. Herein, we functionally characterized a pepper (Capsicum annuum) HD-Zip I TF CaHDZ15. CaHDZ15 expression was upregulated by HTS and abscisic acid in basal thermotolerance via loss- and gain-of-function assays by virus-induced gene silencing in pepper and overexpression in Nicotiana benthamiana plants. CaHDZ15 acted positively in pepper basal thermotolerance by directly targeting and activating HEAT SHOCK FACTORA6a (HSFA6a), which further activated CaHSFA2. In addition, CaHDZ15 interacted with HEAT SHOCK PROTEIN 70-2 (CaHsp70-2) and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase1 (CaGAPC1), both of which positively affected pepper thermotolerance. CaHsp70-2 and CaGAPC1 promoted CaHDZ15 binding to the promoter of CaHSFA6a, thus enhancing its transcription. Furthermore, CaHDZ15 and CaGAPC1 were protected from 26S proteasome-mediated degradation by CaHsp70-2 via physical interaction. These results collectively indicate that CaHDZ15, modulated by the interacting partners CaGAPC1 and CaHsp70-2, promotes basal thermotolerance by directly activating the transcript of CaHSFA6a. Thus, a molecular linkage is established among CaHsp70-2, CaGAPC1, and CaHDZ15 to transcriptionally modulate CaHSFA6a in pepper thermotolerance.

Evaluation of suitable reference genes for expression profile analyses of target genes in the coffee berry borer, Hypothenemus hampei (Ferrari) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae).

The coffee berry borer, Hypothenemus hampei (Ferrari) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), is a major destructive insect pest of coffee, which impacts the coffee crops negatively. As a draft genome has been completed for this insect, most molecular studies on gene transcriptional levels under different experimental conditions will be conducted using real-time reverse-transcription quantitative polymerase chain reactions (RT-qPCR). However, the lack of suitable internal reference genes will affect the accuracy of RT-qPCR results. In this study, the expression stability of nine candidate reference genes was evaluated under different developmental stages, temperature stress, and Beauveria bassiana infection. Data analyses were completed by four commonly used programs, BestKeeper, NormFinder, geNorm, and RefFinder. The result showed that RPL3 and EF1α combination were recommended as the most stable reference genes for developmental stages. EF1α and RPS3a combination were the top two stable reference genes for B. bassiana infection. RPS3a and RPL3 combination performed as the optimal reference genes both in temperature stress and all samples. Our results should provide a good foundation for the expression profile analyses of target genes in the future, especially for molecular studies on insect genetic development, temperature adaptability, and immune mechanism to entomogenous fungi in H. hampei.

Interface Engineering with Dynamics-Mechanics Coupling for Highly Reactive and Reversible Aqueous Zinc-Ion Batteries.

The practical application of AZIBs is hindered by problems such as dendrites and hydrogen evolution reactions caused by the thermodynamic instability of Zinc (Zn) metal. Modification of the Zn surface through interface engineering can effectively solve the above problems. Here, sulfonate-derivatized graphene-boronene nanosheets (G&B-S) composite interfacial layer is prepared to modulate the Zn plating/stripping and mitigates the side reactions with electrolyte through a simple and green electroplating method. Thanks to the electronegativity of the sulfonate groups, the G&B-S interface promotes a dendrite-free deposition behavior through a fast desolvation process and a uniform interfacial electric field mitigating the tip effect. Theoretical calculations and QCM-D experiments confirmed the fast dynamic mechanism and excellent mechanical properties of the G&B-S interfacial layer. By coupling the dynamics-mechanics action, the G&B-S@Zn symmetric battery is cycled for a long-term of 1900 h at a high current density of 5 mA cm-2 , with a low overpotential of ≈30 mV. Furthermore, when coupled with the LMO cathode, the LMO//G&B-S@Zn cell also exhibits excellent performance, indicating the durability of the G&B-S@Zn anode. Accordingly, this novel multifunctional interfacial layer offers a promising approach to significantly enhance the electrochemical performance of AZIBs.

A pan-cancer analysis of the oncogenic role of Golgi transport 1B in human tumors.

Background: Owing to the aggressiveness and treatment-refractory nature of cancer, ideal candidates for early diagnosis and treatment are needed. Golgi transport 1B (GOLT1B) has been associated with cellular malignant behaviors and immune responses in colorectal and lung cancer, but a systematic pan-cancer analysis on GOLT1B has not been conducted. Methods: The expression status and clinical association of GOLT1B in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were analyzed. Genetic and methylation alterations in GOLT1B were explored. The relationship between GOLT1B and immune cell infiltration was also investigated. Genes related to GOLT1B expression were selected and analyzed. Results: GOLT1B was highly expressed in most tumors, and there was a positive correlation between GOLT1B expression and clinical pathological parameters. High expression levels of GOLT1B have been associated with poor prognosis of most cancers. Copy number amplification was the primary type of GOLT1B genetic alterations, which was related to the prognosis of pan-cancer cases. There were different levels of GOLT1B promoter methylation across cancer types. The methylation level of the probe cg07371838 and cg25816357 was closely associated with prognosis in diverse cancers. There was also a positive correlation between GOLT1B genetic alterations and CD4+ T lymphocytes, especially the Th2 subset, as well as between GOLT1B expression and the estimated infiltration value of cancer-associated fibroblasts. Serine/threonine kinase receptor-associated protein (STRAP), integrator complex subunit 13 (INTS13), and ethanolamine kinase 1 (ETNK1) were the most relevant genes for GOLT1B expression, and their interactions with GOLT1B were involved in regulating the transforming growth factor (TGF)-ß receptor signaling pathway and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Conclusions: This pan-cancer analysis provided a comprehensive understanding of the oncogenic role of GOLT1B, highlighting a potential mechanism whereby GOLT1B influences the tumor microenvironment, as well as cancer immunotherapy.

Neural signals-based respiratory motion tracking: a proof-of-concept study.

Objective.Respiratory motion tracking techniques can provide optimal treatment accuracy for thoracoabdominal radiotherapy and robotic surgery. However, conventional imaging-based respiratory motion tracking techniques are time-lagged owing to the system latency of medical linear accelerators and surgical robots. This study aims to investigate the precursor time of respiratory-related neural signals and analyze the potential of neural signals-based respiratory motion tracking.Approach.The neural signals and respiratory motion from eighteen healthy volunteers were acquired simultaneously using a 256-channel scalp electroencephalography (EEG) system. The neural signals were preprocessed using the MNE python package to extract respiratory-related EEG neural signals. Cross-correlation analysis was performed to assess the precursor time and cross-correlation coefficient between respiratory-related EEG neural signals and respiratory motion.Main results.Respiratory-related neural signals that precede the emergence of respiratory motion are detectable via non-invasive EEG. On average, the precursor time of respiratory-related EEG neural signals was 0.68 s. The representative cross-correlation coefficients between EEG neural signals and respiratory motion of the eighteen healthy subjects varied from 0.22 to 0.87.Significance.Our findings suggest that neural signals have the potential to compensate for the system latency of medical linear accelerators and surgical robots. This indicates that neural signals-based respiratory motion tracking is a potential promising solution to respiratory motion and could be useful in thoracoabdominal radiotherapy and robotic surgery.

Association between single nucleotide polymorphism of DNA damage repair related genes and radiosensitivity in healthy individuals.

Radiosensitivity in humans can influence radiation-induced normal tissue toxicity. As radiosensitivity has a genetic predisposition, we aimed to investigate the possible association between four single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) sites and the radiosensitivity in healthy people. We genotyped four selected SNPs: TRIP12 (rs13018957), UIMC1 (rs1700490) and POLN (rs2022302), and analyzed the association between SNP and the radiosensitivity in healthy people. We distinguished radiosensitivity by chromosome aberration analysis in healthy individuals. Healthy donors were classified into three groups based on chromosomal aberrations: resistant, normal and sensitive. Using the normal group as a reference, the genotypes CT and CC of rs13018957 (CT: OR = 26.13; CC: OR = 15.97), AA of rs1700490 (OR = 32.22) and AG of rs2022302 (OR = 13.98) were risk factors for radiosensitivity. The outcomes of the present study suggest that four SNPs are associated with radiosensitivity. This study lends insights to the underlying mechanisms of radiosensitivity and improves our ability to identify radiosensitive individuals.

Feature interaction network based on hierarchical decoupled convolution for 3D medical image segmentation.

Manual image segmentation consumes time. An automatic and accurate method to segment multimodal brain tumors using context information rich three-dimensional medical images that can be used for clinical treatment decisions and surgical planning is required. However, it is a challenge to use deep learning to achieve accurate segmentation of medical images due to the diversity of tumors and the complex boundary interactions between sub-regions while limited computing resources hinder the construction of efficient neural networks. We propose a feature fusion module based on a hierarchical decoupling convolution network and an attention mechanism to improve the performance of network segmentation. We replaced the skip connections of U-shaped networks with a feature fusion module to solve the category imbalance problem, thus contributing to the segmentation of more complicated medical images. We introduced a global attention mechanism to further integrate the features learned by the encoder and explore the context information. The proposed method was evaluated for enhance tumor, whole tumor, and tumor core, achieving Dice similarity coefficient metrics of 0.775, 0.900, and 0.827, respectively, on the BraTS 2019 dataset and 0.800, 0.902, and 0.841, respectively on the BraTS 2018 dataset. The results show that our proposed method is inherently general and is a powerful tool for brain tumor image studies. Our code is available at: https://github.com/WSake/Feature-interaction-network-based-on-Hierarchical-Decoupled-Convolution.

Pan-cancer survey of lncRNA rewiring and functional alternation in tumor-infiltrating T cell by scLNC.

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been reported to involve in diverse biological processes, including tumor immunity. Since lncRNAs are expressed with high cell-type specificity, investigation of lncRNAs at the single-cell level will unveil the cell-type-specific functions of lncRNAs. However, at the single-cell level, a systematic pan-cancer analysis of lncRNA functions in tumor immune microenvironments (TIMEs) remains lacking. Here, we performed pan-cancer single-cell profiling of lncRNA functions in TIMEs and developed a tool, scLNC, tailored for lncRNA functional characterization at the single-cell level. scLNC enabled the comparison of lncRNA function from the levels of lncRNA-mRNA pairs, lncRNA regulatory unit activity and unit function in a cell-type-specific manner. Applying scLNC, our analysis depicted the cross-tumor and tumor-specific lncRNA regulatory profiles in the T cell subtypes and revealed the new regulatory units that lncRNAs established in tumor-infiltrating T cells, particularly in the tumor-enriched T cells. We further characterized the activity and functional alternations of lncRNAs through their regulatory units. Overall, our findings suggested that lncRNAs played an important role in the regulation of cytokine production, cell activation and migration in tumor-enriched T cells and further in immunotherapy.

New Phenolic Dimers from Plant Paeonia suffruticosa and Their Cytotoxicity and NO Production Inhibition.

The Paeonia suffruticosa, known as 'Feng Dan', has been used for thousands of years in traditional Chinese medicine. In our chemical investigation on the root bark of the plant, five new phenolic dimers, namely, paeobenzofuranones A-E (1-5), were characterized. Their structures were determined using spectroscopic analysis including 1D and 2D NMR, HRESIMS, UV, and IR, as well as ECD calculations. Compounds 2, 4, and 5 showed cytotoxicity against three human cancer cell lines, with IC50 values ranging from 6.7 to 25.1 µM. Compounds 1 and 2 showed certain inhibitory activity on NO production. To the best of our knowledge, the benzofuranone dimers and their cytotoxicity of P. suffruticosa are reported for the first time in this paper.

Use of local wound infiltration in open hepatectomy to reduce wound pain: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

The aim of this study was to assess the effects of local wound infiltration anaesthesia on postoperative wound pain in patients undergoing open liver resection. The Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMBASE, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM) and Wanfang databases were searched. The search period spanned from database creation to December 2022. All relevant studies on local wound infiltration anaesthesia for analgesia after hepatectomy were included. Two investigators independently screened the literature, extracted data and evaluated the quality of each study. Review Manager (RevMan) 5.4 software (Cochrane Collaboration) was used for the meta-analysis, in which 12 studies with 986 patients were included. The results show that local wound infiltration anaesthesia effectively reduced surgical site wound pain at 4 h (mean difference [MD]: -1.26, 95% confidence intervals [CIs]: -2.15 to -0.37, P = .005), 12 h (MD: -0.84, 95% CIs: -1.26 to -0.42, P < .001), 24 h (MD: -0.57, 95% CIs: -1.01 to -0.14, P = .009) and 48 h (MD: -0.54, 95% CIs: -0.81 to -0.26, P < .001) postoperatively; however, there was no significant difference in analgesia at 72 h postoperatively (MD: -0.10, 95% CIs: -0.80 to 0.59, P = .77). These findings suggest that local wound infiltration anaesthesia administered to patients undergoing open liver resection provides good postoperative wound analgesia at the surgical site.

Identification and screening of fungicides against Piper nigrum basal Fusarium wilt disease in Hainan, China.

Fusarium wilt has occurred in the main Piper nigrum cultivation regions, which seriously affects the yield and quality of P. nigrum. To identify the pathogen of this disease, the diseased roots were collected from a demonstration base in Hainan Province. The pathogen was obtained by tissue isolation method and confirmed by pathogenicity test. Based on the morphological observation, sequence analyses of TEF1-α nuclear gene, Fusarium solani was identified as the pathogen causing P. nigrum Fusarium wilt and induced symptoms on inoculated plants, including chlorosis, necrotic spots, wilt, drying, and root rot. The experiments for the antifungal activity showed that all the 11 fungicides selected in this study showed certain inhibitory effects on the colony growth of F. solani, where 2% kasugamycin AS, 45% prochloraz EW, 25 g·L-1 fludioxonil SC and 430 g·L-1 tebuconazole SC exhibited relative higher inhibitory effects with EC50 as 0.065, 0.205, 0.395, and 0.483 mg·L-1 , respectively, and were selected to perform SEM analysis and test in seeds in vitro. The SEM analysis showed that kasugamycin, prochloraz, fludioxonil, and tebuconazole might have exerted their antifungal effect by damaging F. solani mycelia or microconidia. These preparations were applied as a seed coating of P. nigrum Reyin-1. The kasugamycin treatment was most effective in reducing the harmful impact of F. solani on the seed germination. These results presented herein provide useful guidance for the effective control of P. nigrum Fusarium wilt.

First Report of Pestalotiopsis clavispora causing Leaf Spot on Pandanus amaryllifolius in China.

Pandanus amaryllifolius, also known as pandan, is a perennial herb, growing in Indonesia, China and the Maluku Islands (Wakte et al. 2009). It is the only plant with aromatic leaves in the Pandanaceae. It is widely used in food, medicine, cosmetics and other industries, and is also known as "Oriental Vanilla." Pandan is planted in Hainan province over 1,300 ha and is the main plant intercropped among the forest trees. From 2020, the leaf spot was surveyed for three years. Diseased leaves occurred on 30 to 80% of the surveyed plants, with an incidence of 70% and yield losses of 40%. The disease occured from mid-November to April and was most severe at low temperatures and humidity. Initial symptoms were pale green spots, that formed dark brown, nearly circular lesions. As the lesions expanded, their centers became greyish white, with yellow halos at the junction of the diseased and healthy tissue. When the humidity was high, there were small black spots scattered in the center of the lesion. Symptomatic leaf samples were collected from four different sites. The leaf surface was disinfested with 75% ethyl alcohol for 30 s and washed with sterile distilled water three times. Samples from the junction of diseased and healthy tissue (0.5 × 0.5 cm) were removed and placed on potato dextrose agar (PDA) medium containing 100 µg/mL of cefotaxime sodium and cultivated in a dark incubator at 28°C. After two days, hyphal tips from the edges of growing colonies were transferred to fresh PDA plates for further purification. Following Koch's postulates, colonies from strains were used as inoculum in pathogenicity tests. Colonies with 5 mm diameter were inoculated upside onto fresh and healthy pandan leaves via wounding method (pinpricked by sterilized needles) and non-wounding method. Sterilized PDA was used as control. All plants were setted three replicates and were incubated at 28℃ for 3 to 5 days. When symptoms on leaves similar to those in the field appeared, the fungus were reisolated The colonies formed on PDA were also consistent with the original isolate (Scandiani et al, 2003). After seven days, the colony covered the whole petri dish with white, petal-shaped growth with a slight concentric, annular bulge in the center, irregular edges, with black acervuli emerging at a later stage of colony growth. Conidia were fusiform, 18.1±1.6 × 6.4±0.3 µm, showing four septations and five cells, the middle three cells were brownish black to olivaceous, and the apical cell colorless with two to three filaments, 21.8±3.5 µm long. The caudate cell was colorless with one stalk 5.9±1.8 µm long (Zhang et al. 2021; Shu et al. 2020). According to the colony and conidia characteristics, the pathogen was initially identified as Pestalotiopsis spp. (Benjamin et al. 1961). To confirm the pathogen identity, we used the universal primers ITS1/ITS4, targeting primers EF1-728F/EF1-986R and Bt2a/Bt2b sequences (Tian et al. 2018). The sequences of the PCR products were deposited in NCBI GenBank with accession numbers OQ165166 (ITS), OQ352149 (TEF1-α) and OQ352150 (TUB2). BLAST results showed that the sequences of the ITS, TEF1-α and TUB2 genes shared 100% homology with the sequences of Pestalotiopsis clavispora. The maximum likelihood method was used in the phylogenetic analysis. The result showed that LSS112 was clustered with Pestalotiopsis clavispora with a support rate of 99%. Based on morphological and molecular characteristics, the pathogen was confirmed as Pestalotiopsis clavispora. To our knowledge, this is the first report of leaf spot of pandan caused by Pestalotiopsis clavispora in China. This research will be immediately helpful for the diagnosis and control the disease on pandan.

Paravertebral block vs. epidural block for percutaneous nephrolithotomy: A prospective, randomized study.

Background: Percutaneous nephrolithotripsy (PCNL) is the main method for urinary calculi. An anesthesia method with little effect on the blood circulation and which does not affect the postoperative activity of a patient is lacking. Objective: To compare the effects of paravertebral nerve block (PNB) and epidural block (EPB) on quadriceps femoris muscle (QFM) strength in patients after PCNL. Methods: 163 patients were separated into two groups: EPB (81) and PNB (82). Primary outcome parameters were QFM strength and range of motion (RoM) of the knee 1 h, 2 h, 3 h, and 24 h after anesthesia induction (AI). Secondary outcome parameters were: time from AI beginning to first ambulation; time of sensory-plane recovery; amount of additional analgesics given during and after surgery; prevalence of nausea and vomiting; duration of hospital stay (DoHS); mean arterial pressure (MAP), heart rate (HR), and oxygen saturation (SpO2) before, 0.5 h, and 1 h after AI; visual analog scale (VAS) score 0.5 h, 1 h, 2 h, 3 h and 24 h after AI. Results: There was no significant difference in QFM strength or knee RoM before or 24 h after AI between the two groups (P > 0.05). The time from AI to first ambulation was shorter (P < 0.05) and the sensory plane took longer to recover (P < 0.05) in the PNB group than in the EPB group. The amount of additional analgesics during surgery was more in the PNB group than in the EPB group (P < 0.05), but there was no significant difference after surgery (P > 0.05). VAS scores were higher in the PNB group than in the EPB group 0.5 after AI (P < 0.05). MAP 1 h after AI was higher in the PNB group than in the EPB group (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference in the prevalence of postoperative nausea and vomiting, DoHS, HR, or SpO2 at 0.5 h and 1 h after AI between the two groups (P > 0.05). Conclusions: For patients undergoing PCNL, PNB can meet the need for surgical analgesia while having little effect on QFM strength. Trial registration: http://www.chictr.org.cn/, identifier ChiCTR2200060606.

Nine New Pregnane Glycosides from the Cultivated Medicinal Plant Marsdenia tenacissima.

The ethnobotanical plant Marsdenia tenacissima has been used for hundreds of years for Dai people in Yunnan Province, China. Previously, chemical investigations on this plant have revealed that pregnane glycosides were the main biological constituents. Nine new pregnane glycosides, marsdeosides A-I (1-9), were isolated from cultivated dried stems of the medicinal plant Marsdenia tenacissima in this study. The structures were analyzed by extensive spectroscopic analysis, including 1D, 2D NMR, HRESIMS, and IR spectroscopic analysis. The absolute configurations of the sugar moieties were identified by comparing the Rf values and specific optical rotations with those of the commercially available standard samples and the data reported in the literature. Marsdeosides A (1) featured an unusual 8,14-seco-pregnane skeleton. Compounds 1, 8, and 9 showed activity against nitric oxide production in lipopolysaccharide-activated macrophage RAW264.7, with IC50 values of 37.5, 38.8, and 42.8 µM (L-NMMA was used as a positive control, IC50 39.3 µM), respectively. This study puts the knowledge of the chemical profile of the botanical plant M. tenacissima one step forward and, thereby, promotes the sustainable utilization of the resources of traditional folk medicinal plants.